XIV.] 
ST. LAWRENCE ISLAND. 
253 
During winter a sealskin tent was probably stretched over 
this opening, but it was removed for the time, probably to 
permit the summer heat to penetrate into the hole and melt 
the ice, which had collected during winter on its walls. At 
several tents we found large under-jaws of whales fixed in the 
ground. They were perforated above, and I suppose that the 
winter-tent, in the absence of other framework, was stretched 
over them. Masses of whale-bones lay thrown up along the 
shore, evidently belonging to the same species as those we 
collected at the shore-dunes at Pitlekaj. In the neighbourhood 
of the tents graves were also found. The corpses had been 
placed, unburned, in some cleft among the rocks which are split 
up by the frost, and often converted into immense stone mounds. 
They had afterwards been covered with stones, and skulls of 
the bear and the seal and whale-bones had been offered or 
scattered around the grave. 
North-east of the anchorage the shore was formed of low hills 
rising with a steep slope from the sea. Here and there ruinlike 
cliffs projected from the hills, resembling those we saw on the coast 
of Chukch Land. But the rock here consisted of the same sort of 
granite which formed the lowermost stratum at Konyam Bay. It 
was principally at the foot of these slopes that the natives erected 
their dwellings. South-west of the anchorage commenced a very 
extensive plain, which towards the interior of the island was 
marshy, but along the coast formed a firm, even, grassy meadow 
exceedingly rich in flowers. It was gay with the large sunflower¬ 
like Arnica Pseudo-Arnica, and another species of Senecio {Senecio 
frigidus); the Oxytropis nigrescens, close-tufted and rich in flowers, 
not stunted here as in Chukch Land ; several species of Pedicu- 
laris in their fullest bloom (P. sudetica, P. Langsdorfii, P. Oederi 
and P. capitata) ; the stately snow auricula {Primula nivalis), 
and the pretty Primula lorealis. As characteristic of the 
vegetation at this place may also be mentioned several ranunculi, 
an anemone {Anemone narcissiflora), a species of monkshood 
