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.

I will now lightly sketch the probable route of the Esquimaux
emigration, as I believe it to have taken place in the north-east of
Asia. The Tchuktches, the only independent tribe in Siberia, are seen
to assume, amongst that portion of them residing on the sea-coast,
habits closel