On the 29th, the ice being slack for a short distance, we shifted the _Hecla_ half a mile to the northward, into a less insecure berth. I then walked to a broad valley facing the sea near us, where a considerable stream discharged itself, and where, in passing in the ships, a large fish had been observed to jump out of the water. In hopes of finding salmon here, we tried for some time with several hand-nets, but nothing was caught or seen. In this place were a number of the Esquimaux stone circles, apparently of very old date, being quite overgrown with grass, moss, and other plants. In the neighbourhood of these habitations the vegetation was much more luxuriant than anything of the kind we had seen before during this voyage. The state of this year’s plants was now very striking, compared with those of the last, and afforded strong evidence, if any had been wanting, of the difference between the two seasons. I was particularly struck with the appearance of some moss collected by Mr. Hooper, who pointed out to me upon the same specimen the last year’s miserable seeds just peeping above the leaves, while those of the present summer had already shot three-quarters of an inch beyond them. Another circumstance which we noticed about this time, and still more so as the season advanced, was the rapid progress which the warmth had already made in dissolving the last year’s snow, this being always easily known by its dingy colour, and its admixture with the soil. Of the past winter’s snow not a particle could be seen at the close of July on any part of this coast. These facts, together with the beautiful weather we had enjoyed for many weeks past, all tended to show that we were now favoured with an unusually fine summer. We found in this place, in the dry bed of an old stream, innumerable fossils in the limestone, principally shells and madrepore. On a hill abreast of the _Hecla_, and at an elevation of not less than three or four hundred feet above the sea, one particular spot was discovered in which the same kind of shells first found in Barrow’s Strait in 1819 occurred in very great abundance and perfection, wholly detached from the lime in which for the most part they were found embedded in other places on this coast. Indeed, it was quite astonishing, in looking at the numberless fossil animal remains occurring in many of the stones, to consider the countless myriads of shell fish and marine insects which must once have existed on this shore. The cliffs next the sea, which here rise to a perpendicular height of between four and five hundred feet, were continually breaking down at this season, and adding, by falls of large masses of stone, to the slope of _débris_ lying at their foot. The ships lay so close to the shore as to be almost within the range of some of these tumbling masses, there being at high water scarcely beach enough for a person to walk along the shore.