Supposing, then, that from the east of Asia these people first migrated to the American continent, and thence, eventually wandered to the eastern shores of Greenland, it became an interesting question to us, how the lands upon our northern hand, in our passage to the west up Barrow's Strait, should bear such numerous marks of human location, whereas upon the southern side they were comparatively scarce; and how the natives residing in the northern portion of Baffin's Bay should have been ignorant that their brethren dwelt in great numbers southward of the glaciers of Melville Bay. Some amongst us--and I was of this number--objected to the theory summarily advanced, that at a remote period these northern lands had been peopled from the south, and that the population had perished or wasted away from increased severity of climate or diminution of the means of subsistence. Our objections were argued on the following grounds:--If the Parry group had been colonized from the American continent, that continent, their nursery, would have shown signs of a large population at points immediately in juxtaposition, which it does not do. From the estuary of the Coppermine to the Great Fish River, the Esquimaux traces are less numerous than on the north shore of Barrow's Strait. To assert that the Esquimaux have travelled from the American continent to the bleak shores of Bathurst Island, is to suppose a savage capable of voluntarily quitting a land of plenty for one of gaunt famine: on the other hand, it seems unreasonable to attribute these signs of a by-gone people's existence to some convulsion of nature, or some awful increase of cold, since no similar catastrophe has occurred in any other part of the world. Contrary to such opinions, we opined that the traces were those of a vast and prolonged emigration, and that it could be shown, on very fair premises, that a large number of the Innuit, Skraeling, or Esquimaux--call them what you please--had travelled from Asia to the eastward along a much higher parallel of latitude than the American continent, and, in their very natural search for the most hospitable region, had gone from the _north towards the south, not from the south towards the north_, or, what may yet one day be laid open to the world, reached a high northern latitude, in which a deep and uncongealable sea gives rise to a milder climate and an increased amount of the capabilities of subsistence.