After the gales are over there is generally less motion in the pack, until about the middle of April, when easterly winds usually cause leads to open at the edge of the land-floe. These leads now continue to open and shut, varying in size with the direction and force of the wind. As the season advances, especially in July, the melting of the ice on the surface loosens portions of the land-floe, which float off and join the pack, bringing the leads nearer to the shore. In the meantime the level shore ice has been cut away from the beach by the warm water running down from the land and has grown “rotten” and full of holes from the heat of the sun. By the time the outside ice has moved away so as to leave only the floes grounded on the bar the inside ice breaks up into loose masses, moving up and down with wind and current and ready to move off through the first break in the barrier. Portions of the remaining barrier gradually break off and at last the whole finally floats and moves out with the pack, sometimes, as in 1881--a very remarkable season--moving out of sight from the land. This final departure of the ice may take place at any time between the middle of July and the middle of August. East of Point Barrow we had opportunities only for hasty and superficial observations of the state of the ice. The land floe appears to form some distance outside of the sandy islands, and from the account of the natives there is much open water along shore early in the season, caused by the breaking up of the rivers. Dr. Simpson[N12] learned from the natives that the trading parties which left the Point about the 1st of July found open water at Dease Inlet. This is more definite information than we were able to obtain. We only learned that they counted on finding open water a few days’ journey east. [Footnote N12: Op. cit., p. 264.] THE PEOPLE. PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS.