The loose and rugged slabs of slaty limestone of which the hills were composed made the walking very arduous, added to which a thick fog and snowstorm that overtook us rendered our climb unprofitable so far as ascertaining the nature of the ice to seaward and the prospect of pushing on were concerned. The steep cliffs surrounding this prominent headland are wasted and worn by the combined effects of snow and weather, and present the same "battlemented" appearance so common to the Silurian limestone formation of the cliffs about Prince Regent Inlet and Lancaster Sound. A few fossils were collected, but, with the exception of some sprigs of the stunted willow and a single tuft of saxifrage, the land was devoid of all vegetation. Deep ravines stretched away into the interior, entirely free from both snow and ice. Traces of former inhabitants were discovered along the beach, consisting of the site of an Eskimo settlement and a few small cairns or fox-traps.
Hitherto the traces of these interesting tribes have been continuous along the western side of Smith Sound, and tend, in my opinion, to prove conclusively that the Eskimos were in former days far more numerous than they are at the present time. What has become of them? The solution of this important ethnological question would be of the greatest interest. Have they gradually died out? or have they migrated farther south, and are now represented by the "Arctic Highlanders," and by tribes settled on both sides of Lancaster Sound who are frequently visited by our whalers?
It is certain that at some remote time there was a movement of Eskimo tribes from Asia towards Greenland in these high latitudes, for traces of their encampments have been found along the shores of the Parry group from Melville Island to Lancaster Sound, where they are still living in Dundas Harbour and in Admiralty Inlet. The late Admiral Sherard Osborn and my cousin, Mr. Clements Markham, paid great attention to this subject during the Arctic Expedition of 1850-51, and prepared a descriptive list of all the Eskimo vestiges along the whole length of the Parry group.[1] We now traced similar remains up the western side of the channels leading north from Smith Sound, at Cape Sabine, on the shores of Buchanan Strait, on Norman Lockyer Island, on Capes Hilgard, Louis Napoleon, Hayes, and Fraser, at Radmore Harbour, and Bellot Island. The most northern point where human remains were discovered was at Cape Beechey, in 81° 54´ N. Here our naturalist found the framework of a large wooden sledge, a stone lamp, and a snow scraper made of walrus tusk. Beyond this point there was no sign of any human being having preceded us. This is the utmost northern known limit of Eskimo wandering, and here they appear to have crossed the strait, and to have made their way southward on the Greenland side. The most northern permanent human habitation in the world is now at Etah, near Port Foulke, and, under present climatic conditions, it would be impossible even for the Etah Eskimo to exist at Cape Beechey, in 81° 54´ N., whither their ancestors must have wandered in remote times. There is much yet to learn respecting these marvellous wanderings along the Arctic shores; and our expedition has certainly thrown considerable new light on the question. We have fixed the most northern limit of the Eskimo migrations, and have established the fact that they did not come from the north down Smith Sound, but merely wandered round its shores until the palæocrystic floes in Robeson Channel made them despair of finding there the means of supporting life. We have also proved that the people seen by Captain Clavering on the east coast of Greenland in 1823 could not have come round its northern extreme, but that they had found their way to the neighbourhood of the Pendulum Islands from Cape Farewell. They are useful contributions towards the final solution of a very important ethnological question, which, however, cannot be fully and conclusively settled until all the unknown parts of the Polar area have been explored.