270 
VOYAGE TO THE 
CH AP, covered with moss and long grass, which produced all the plants we had 
met with to the southward, and two or three besides. Cape Beaufort 
August, is composed of sandstone, enclosing bits of petrified wood and rushes, 
1826 . , . - , . ^ 
and IS traversed by narrow veins of coal lying in an E. N. E. and W. S. W. 
direction. That at the surface was dry and bad, but some pieces which 
had been thrown up by the burrowing of a small animal, probably the 
ermine, burned very well. 
As this is a part of the coast hitherto unexplored, I may stand 
excused for being a little more particular in my description. Cape 
Beaufort is situated in the depth of a great bay, formed between Cape 
Lisburn and Icy Cape, and is the last point where the hills come close 
down to the sea, by reason of the coast line curving to the northward, 
while the range of hills continues its former direction. From the 
rugged mountains of limestone and flint at Cape Lisburn, there is 
an uniform descent to the rounded hills of sandstone at Cape Beaufort 
just described. The range is, however, broken by extensive valleys, 
intersected by lakes and rivers. Some of these lakes border upon the 
sea, and in the summer months are accessible to baidars, or even large 
boats ; but as soon as the current from the beds of thawing snow 
inland ceases, the sea throws up a bar across the mouths of them, and 
they cannot be entered. The beach, at the places where we landed 
was shingle and mud, the country mossy and swampy, and infested 
with moskitos. We noticed recent tracks of wolves, and of some 
cloven-footed animals, and saw several ptarmigans, ortolans, and a lark. 
Very little drift wood had found its way upon this part of the coast. 
AV e reached the ship just after a thick fog came in from seaward, and 
only a short time before the increasing breeze obliged her to quit the 
coast. During my absence the boats had been sent to examine a large 
floating mass which excited a good deal of curiosity at the time, and 
found it to be the carcass of a dead whale. It had an Esquimaux har- 
poon in it, and a drag attached, made of an inflated seal-skin, which 
had no doubt worried the animal to death. Thus, with knowledge 
just proportioned to their wants, do these untutored barbarians, with 
their slender boats and limited means, contrive to take the largest ani- 
mal of the creation. In the present instance, certainly, their victim 
