The architectural skill of these, the most northerly people of the world, was not without interest to Hayes. "I found the huts to be in shape much like an old-fashioned clay oven, square in front and sloping back into the hill. The whole interior was about ten feet in diameter and five and a half feet high. The walls were made of stones, moss, and of the bones of whale, narwhal, and other animals. They were not arched, but drawn in gradually and capped by long slabs of slate-stone stretching from side to side. The floor was covered with flat stones, and the rear half of it was elevated a foot. This elevation, called a _breck_, served both as bed and seat, being covered with dry grass over which were spread the skins of bears and dogs. Under a small corner _breck_ lay a litter of pups[9] and under another was stowed a joint of meat. Above the passageway opened a window, a square sheet of dried intestines, neatly sewed together. The entrance hole, close to the front wall, was covered with a piece of seal-skin. The walls were lined with seal or fox skins stretched to dry. In the cracks between the stones of the walls were thrust whip-stocks and bone pegs on which hung coils of harpoon-lines. The lamps were made of soapstone and in shape much resembled a clam-shell, being about eight inches in diameter. The cavity was filled with oil and on the straight edge a flame was burning brilliantly. The wick which supplied fuel to the flame was of moss. Above the flame hung, suspended from the roof, an oblong, nearly square, cooking-pot made of soapstone. Over this was a rack, made of bear rib-bones lashed together crosswise, on which were placed to dry stockings, mittens, trousers, and other articles of clothing. There were three lamps, and centring around its own particular lamp were three families, one represented by three generations." Petersen's party went into winter quarters sixteen miles south of Cape Parry, where their equipment was landed, the boats hauled up, and their tents pitched. As the men suffered frightfully in the thin tents, a hut was built in a crevice of a neighboring cliff. With the well-known resourcefulness of the American sailor, they put up quite a comfortable shelter roofed with the sails of the boat. A canvas-covered wooden frame served as a door, and an old muslin shirt greased with seal blubber admitted a feeble light through the hole called a window.