February 27, 1885.] 



SCIENCE. 



171 



the land can be seen from Weevang (the north 

 shore of Baffin Land) ; and many natives have 

 lived there, and have been seen by whalers, and 

 b}' the expeditions sent in search of Sir John 

 Franklin. 



The report on the state of the ice in Jones 

 Sound is very important for the identification 

 of this place. As there is a narrow neck of 



110° 100° 90° W. 80° Gr. 70" C0° 



land connecting Cornwallis and Bathurst Is- 

 lands, I was rather inclined to judge this to be 

 the place where my Eskimo had been. How- 

 ever, her memory would barely have failed her 

 in recollecting the passage over the ice of Wel- 

 lington Channel ; and besides, the description of 

 the land, Oomingmam nuna, does not agree 

 with Bathurst Island. In Jones Sound, Belcher 

 found open water in May, 1853, at a time of 

 the year when the ice in narrow channels can 

 only be wasted by strong currents. We know 

 nothing about the part of the sound north-east of 

 North-Kent Island, north of which Belcher dis- 



covered many small islands. The open water, 

 the narrow passage between North Kent and 

 North Devon, and the many small islands to the 

 north, closely resemble the description given 

 me by the Eskimo woman. It would be ver} 7 

 interesting to find that Jones Sound is closed 

 there by a narrow neck of land. The heavy 

 ice Inglefield met with in Jones Sound, in 1852, 

 may have drifted into the sound 

 as easilv from Smith Sound as 

 from a sea west of Ellesmere 

 Land. 



The last reason leading me to 

 think that Ellesmere Land and 

 Oomingmam nuna are the same, 

 is that the same name is applied 

 to Ellesmere Land by the Smith- 

 Sound natives. In Etah, Bessels 

 met a man who came from Cape 

 Searle, on Davis Strait. He had 

 lived for some time among the 

 Ellesmere-Land natives, and re- 

 ferred to that country as Ooming- 

 mam nuna. In the whole of 

 Baffin Land the natives know 

 Oomingmam nuna, and always 

 point it out as beyond Tudnu- 

 nirn (Ponds Bay) and Tudjan. 

 For these reasons there can 

 scarcely be an} T doubt that the 

 description I obtained really re- 

 fers to Jones Sound and the west 

 shore of Ellesmere Land. 



The Eskimo of Etah assert 

 that Hayes Sound is a passage 

 leading into the western ocean, 

 and dividing the land west of the 

 Smith- Sound seas into two is- 

 lands, — Ellesmere Land and 

 Grinnell Land ; and there is no 

 reason to doubt their statements. 

 The English expedition under 

 Nares supposed the sound not to 

 be open to tidal currents ; Gree- 

 ly's explorations, however, ex- 

 tend it much farther to the west, and are rather 

 in favor of the theory that the sound really forms 

 a passage. The accompanying map presents 

 my views of the probable configuration of the 

 land in this region. Dr. Franz Boas. 



PALENQUE VISITED BY CORTEZ. 



A memoir by Mr. Teobert Maler upon the 

 state of Chiapas (Mexico), published in the 

 July and August numbers, 1884, of the Revue 

 d'ethnograpJiie, contains some items of more 



