48 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 
near Upernavik, at Niakornik, Fortune Bay, Fisker- 
nars, and Jakobsliavn. 
The present knowledge we have of the anthropology 
of the Arctic regions is a warranty that further re¬ 
searches there would lead to a considerable increase of 
that knowledge. There are indications of human 
beings or of human habitations in the most northern 
lands yet visited; and probably they live or have 
lived in the undiscovered lands to the north. People 
live in 80° N. on the west coast of Greenland, and they 
formerly did at 76° N. on the east coast. These two 
points are 600 miles apart. On the west coast there 
is a tribe, commonly called the Arctic Highlanders, 
which occupies about 600 miles of sea coast. They 
are unable to advance farther south or north, in con¬ 
sequence of two large glaciers entering the sea, which 
prove to be impassable barriers to them. And they 
cannot pass far into the interior owing to the Sernik 
Soak, or Great Ice wall. They asserted that Ross's 
ship could not have come from the south because there 
was nothing but ice in that direction; and although 
they also told Kane that no people existed farther 
north, they had a tradition that there were herds of 
musk oxen far to the north on an island in an iceless 
sea. That natives have been to the north of the 
Humboldt glacier is proved by the bone sledge-runner 
