A few weeks later Ross was to see how these houses were built. "Four families," he says, "comprising fifteen persons, passed the ship to erect new huts about half a mile to the southward. They had four heavy-laden sledges, drawn each by two or three dogs, but proceeded very slowly. We went after them to see the process of building the snow house, and were surprised at their dexterity; one man having closed in his roof within forty-five minutes. A tent is scarcely pitched sooner than a house is here built. The whole process is worth describing. Having ascertained, by the rod used in examining seal holes, whether the snow is sufficiently deep and solid, they level the intended spot by a wooden shovel, leaving beneath a solid mass of snow not less than three feet thick. Commencing then in the centre of the intended circle, which is ten feet or more in diameter, different wedge-shaped blocks are cut out, about two feet long, and a foot thick at the outer part; then trimming them accurately by the knife, they proceed upwards until the courses, gradually inclining inwards, terminate in a perfect dome. The door being cut out from the inside before it is quite closed serves to supply the upper materials. In the meantime the women are employed in stuffing the joints with snow, and the boys in constructing kennels for the dogs. The laying the snow sofa with skins and the insertion of the ice window complete the work; the passage only remaining to be added, as it is after the house is finished, together with some smaller huts for stores"—the design being similar to that of the yurts of the Eskimos of the north, with a change of material, snow for stone, and ice instead of seal-gut for the window over the entrance. Making friends with the Eskimos, and gaining a great reputation by the carpenter fitting one of them with a wooden leg, Ross obtained much valuable information from them, particularly as to the geography of the district. Like all Arctic men, he was impressed by their quickness in understanding maps and their skill in drawing them upon anything, snow, paper, or otherwise, that lay handy. One of them, Ikmallik, drew in the ship's cabin a map, which he reprints in his book, showing the coast-line of the country south of the _Victory's_ quarters, with the capes, inlets, and islands, giving the isthmus of Boothia and Committee Bay, and Repulse Bay on the other side of the Melville Peninsula, which is really wonderful, for neither the Eskimo, nor Ross, had anything to copy from, it being nearly twenty years before Rae's exploration; and the one thing it clearly demonstrated was that there was no waterway to the westward, south of Felix Harbour.