1808-1822.] CAPTAINS ROSS AND BEECHEY. 
47 
ally on the coast; but the natives find the bone of whales 
and teeth of walrus best calculated, from strength and 
lightness, to make their sledges, of which a good specimen 
is brought home. They burn whale oil, making a wick 
of moss, which serves also for fuel. They have scarcely 
any plants but mosses, and no quadrupeds except bears, 
hares, dogs, and white foxes. The dogs resemble wolves 
with short legs, are very strong, well fitted for sledge 
harness, and perfectly gentle. There is a live fox which 
I saw this morning at the Museum basking in the hoar 
frost; he prefers staying on the outside of his house in 
the coldest nights, and is quite white and by no means 
savage. 
“ As to the rocks, the west coast of Baffin’s Bay, on 
the only spot they touched, resembled Derbyshire in its 
limestone and trap. The blocks floating on the icebergs 
were chiefly granite mica, slate, and trap ; and the coast of 
Greenland near Disco, trap with a bed of imperfect coal 
in it. 
“ The other ships have not done so much as those from 
Baffin’s Bay. I have seen none of their officers, but have 
been on board the Alexander , which was with Captain 
Ross, and obtained specimens of the mosses, which I will 
soon forward to Penrice. The Spitzbergen ships were 
impeded by their accident from proceeding : one of them 
was right between two masses of ice, and raised out of the 
water ; her side was forced in, and a barrel of meal within 
pressed flat as a pancake. The only mode of repairing 
her was lashing her to an iceberg, and pulling her mast 
downwards, until her side rose out of the water sufficiently 
to have planks laid on the outside. She was much too 
damaged to proceed. I saw yesterday at Murray’s some 
drawings which will be engraved of the situation of the 
ships in a storm amidst the icebergs, dashing every minute 
against enormous floating rocks of ice, from which it 
seems miraculous how they ever could have escaped.” 
In May 1825 the Blossom , under Captain Beechey, was 
sent out to afford such assistance as might be required by 
