4 
MY BEAR. 175 
feet eight inches and three quarters from tip to tip. I 
presented the skin, on my return home, to the Acad> 
emy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia. 
The carcass was larger than that of an ordinary ox 
fatted for market. We estimated his weight at near- 
ly sixteen hundred pounds. In build he was very sol- 
id, and the muscles of the arms and haunch fearfully 
developed. I once before compared the posterior as- 
pect of the Arctic bear to an elephant's. All my mess- 
mates used the same comparison. The extreme round- 
ness of his back and haunches, with the columnar char- 
acter of the legs, and the round expansion of the feet, 
give you the impression of a small elephant. The 
plantigrade base of support overlapped by long hair 
heightens the resemblance. The head and neck, of 
course, are excluded from the comparison. 
At five in the afternoon we succeeded in reaching 
within a quarter of a mile of the shore off Barlow's In- 
let, and made fast there to the floe. This inlet is but 
a few miles from Cape Hotham, and is marked on the 
charts as a mere interruption of the coast line. Parry, 
who named it, must have had wonderfully favoring 
weather to sight so accurately an insignificant cove. 
He was a practiced hydrographer. 
The limestone cliffs rise on each side, forming stu- 
pendous piers gnarled by frost degradation, between 
which is the entrance, about a quarter of a mile wide. 
The moment our little vessel entered the shadow of 
these cliffs, a quiet gloom took the place of bustling 
movement. We ground our way into the newly-form- 
ed ice, and, after making a couple of ships' lengths, 
found ourselves within a sort of cape of land floe, sur- 
rounded by high hummocks and anchored bergs. It 
was a melancholy spot ; not one warm sun tint ; ev- 
pry thing blank, repulsive sterility. 
