180 Captain Parry and Mr Fisher’s Journals of a 
the nature and productions of the country ; and he here wit- 
nessed a fact of a very remarkable kind. 
“ The first thing,” says Mr Fisher, “that attracted our notice in 
going along the bank of the stream, was to meet human tracks in so 
perfect a state, that had the place been known to be frequented by 
man, we should have supposed that people had been here only a 
few days before ; but one of the men who was with me, as well as 
myself, remembered that we had been on the very same spot where 
the tracks were observed, last year *, gathering plants, so that we 
had not the smallest doubt of their being the remains of our own 
footsteps made last year ; for had any Esquimaux been at this place 
since we were here before, it is more than probable that they would 
have taken away the pole on the hill, for from what we saw of them 
last year, nothing could be a greater prize for them than a piece of 
wood, of the size of that in question. Besides, we observed that the 
impression of the heel of the shoe was deeper than that of any other 
part of it, which would not be the case were they the tracks of Es- 
quimaux, for they never have heels to their shoes or boots ; and, in 
fact, the size and shape of the footmarks were such as to satisfy us 
perfectly as to their origin. From this circumstance we may con- 
clude, that there is no great fall of snow in this country in the win- 
ter, for doubtless the melting of it would have effaced these tracks.” 
P. 60. 
This singular freshness of human footsteps, if they were those 
of Mr Fisher and his companions in 1818, indicates a tranquil- 
lity among the elements, which could scarcely be expected un- 
der the Arctic Zone. To efface the impression of a heavy foot 
upon soft ground, might be supposed to require some consider- 
able action of wind and rain ; but, on the other hand, to pre- 
serve for eleven months that distinct tracery of the human foot, 
in which the difference of level between the heel and the sole is 
distinctly seen, would require a suspension or diminution of 
those diurnal operations which is to be found on no part of the 
earth’s surface. May not some of the crew of one or other of 
the fifty whalers who were in Baffin’s Bay in 1819, before the ar- 
rival of the Hecla, have been landed at Possession Bay ? 
On the 2d of August the expedition was directly opposite 
Lancaster Sound. On the 3d they had fairly entered it, and, 
under the influence of a favourable breeze, they had, before the 
4th, completely crossed the mountainous barrier, which, in a de- 
ceitful state of the atmosphere, had appeared to Captain Ross 
* Captain Ross landed here in 1818, and erected on the top of one of the hills 
& pole, which still remained. 
