C H A P . require, and the place where it was deposited was pointed out by writing
' upon the cliffs with white paint. It w'as further arranged, that a party
July, should proceed over land in a northerly direction, in the hope of falling
in with Captain Franklin, as it was possible the shore of the I’olar Sea
might lie more to the southward than the general trending of that part
of its coast which had been explored led us to expect. But as the ship
was likely to be absent several w'eeks, and we were unacquainted with
the disposition of the people or with the country, further than that
the latter seemed to present almost insurmountable difficulties from its
swampy nature, I deferred the departure of the party, and afterwards
wholly abandoned the project, as the coast was found to extend so
far to the northward as to render it quite useless.
As I wished to avail myself of the latitude afforded by this memoir,
and examine as much of the coast as possible before Captain
Franklin arrived, no time was lost in preparing the ship for sea, which
it required only a little time to effect.
On the 28th Mr. Elson returned from the examination of the
opening we discovered on the north side of Kotzebue Sound, and reported
the water at the entrance to be so shallow that the barge could
not enter. The inlet was of considerable width, and extended thirty or
forty miles in a broad sheet of water, which at some distance up was
fresh. This was ascertained by landing in the sound to the eastward
of the opening, at which place it was found that the inlet approached
the sea within a mile and a half. The time to which it was necessary to
limit Mr. Elson prevented his doing more than ascertaining that this
opening was navigable only by small boats ; and by the water being
quite fresh, that it could not lead to any sea beyond.
The Esquimaux in the inlet were more numerous than we supposed,
but were very orderly and well behaved. When the barge
anchored off a low sandy point, on which they had erected their summer
habitations and fishing stakes, she was surrounded by fourteen
baidars, containing 150 men ; which, considering the crew of the barge
only amounted to eight men and two officers, was a superiority of
strength that might well have entitled them to take liberties, had they
been so disposed, armed as they usually are with bows and arrows.
spears, and a large knife strapped to their thigh : but so far from,this CHAP.
being the case, they readily consented to an arrangement, that only one
baidar at a time should come alongside to dispose of her goods, and then
Julv,
1 8 2 6 .
make way for another: the proposal was made while the baidars were
assembled round our boat, and was received with a shout of general
applause.
Blue beads, cutlery, tobacco, and buttons, were the articles in
request, and with which almost any thing they had might have been
purchased; for these they sold their implements, ornaments, and some
very fine salmon ; also a small caiac very similar to those of Greenland
and Hudson’s Strait.
AVhile the duties of the ship were being forwarded under my first
lieutenant, ¡Mr. Peard, I took the opportunity to visit the extraordinary
ice-formation in Escholtz Bay mentioned by Kotzebue, as being
“ covered with a soil half a foot thick, producing the most luxuriant
grass,” and containing an abundance of mammoth bones. AVe sailed
up the bay, wliich was extremely shallow, and landed at a deserted
village on a low sandy point, ivhere Kotzebue bivouacked when he
visited the place, and to which I afterivards gave the name of Elephant
Point, from the bones of that animal being found near it.
The cliffs in which this singular formation was discovered begin
near this point, and extend westward in a nearly straight line to a rocky
cliff of primitive formation at the entrance of the bay, whence the
coast takes an abrupt turn to the southward. The cliffs are from
twenty to eighty feet in height; and rise inland to a rounded range
of hills between four and five hundred feet above the sea. In some
])laccs they present a perpendicular Iroiit to the northward, in others a
slightly inclined surface; and are occasionally intersected by valleys and
water-courses generally overgrown with low bushes. Opposite each of
these valleys, there is a projecting flat piece of ground, consisting of the
materials that have been washed down the ravine, wliere the only good
landing for boats is afforded. The soil of the cliffs is a bluish-coloured
mud, for the most part covered with moss and long grass, full of deep
furrows, generally filled with water or frozen snow. Mud in a frozen state
forms the surface of the cliff in some parts ; in others the rock appears,
I. L