68 Dr. EpwArD L. Moss, 
It was from this latitude that our continuous search along the 
coast-lines began. South of this point our visits to the shore on 
both the outward and homeward voyages were of the most 
flying character. Every movement of the ice had to be taken 
advantage of, and our naturalists had often less than twenty 
minutes to bundle together their specimens, Botanical, Zoological, 
and Geological; and yet abundant evidences of man were found 
on every beach, till Lady Franklin Sound intersected the coast- 
line. The Discovery wintered in a bay inside Bellot Island, 
on the north shore of Lady Franklin Sound, and in the same 
latitude as Cape Lupton, and the shores to the north instead of 
being merely visited at intervals, were traversed over and over 
again by our sledge parties. 
Lady Franklin Sound had not interrupted the onward passage 
of the Eskimo. Tempted doubtless by the reindeer and musk-oxen, 
on Bellot Island and the neighbouring main-land, their hunters 
had crossed the sound, and several hearths, where splinters of 
burnt drift wood and bits of scorched bone lay amongst the 
blackened stones, where found on a long low spit of Bellot Island. 
On a little rocky island within a stone’s throw of the main-land 
similar marks of summer hunting parties were discovered. For 
seventeen miles to the north-eastward the shore still affords a 
practicable path; but at Cape Beechey, the steep cliffs of Robeson 
Channel rise abruptly from the tumbling stream of Polar ice, 
that pours through the strait, under these cliffs and at the very 
end of the practicable coast, Captain Feilden discovered a broken 
sledge anda broken lamp. From this point northward our sledges 
followed the coast for 100 miles to the north-east, and for 250 
miles to the north-west and found no further trace. 
All the likely parts of the coast were traversed dozens of times 
both before and after the disappearance of the snow, and no spot 
where Eskimo had ever camped or cooked could possibly have 
escaped us. I feel quite confident that all who have travelled 
over the respective coasts will indorse the opinion already pub- 
lished by Captain Feilden,* that “the men whose tracks we 
followed to the 82° parallel never got round Cape Union, and 
that it is impossible for any Eskimo to have rounded the northern 
shores of Greenland.” | 
* “ Naturalist,” Aug. and Sept., 1877. 
