part of the coast is skirted to the distance of two miles by flat
sands, on which there is not more than a foot or eighteen inches of
water. The depth of water gradually increases to four fathoms, which it
attains at the distance of six or seven miles from the shore, and the
heavy ice we saw outside, showed that the depth there was considerable.
Esquimaux winter-huts occur frequently on the coast, and the rows of
drift-trees planted in the sand with the roots uppermost, in their
vicinity, assume very curious forms, when seen through a hazy
atmosphere. They frequently resembled a crowd of people, and sometimes
we fancied they were not unlike the spires of a town just appearing
above the horizon. We learnt by experience that the shore was more
approachable at the points on which the Esquimaux had built, and we
effected a landing at one of those places, when, having discharged the
cargoes, we hauled the boats up, and pitched the tents. The water at our
landing-place was fresh, but too hard to make tea; and at four or five
miles from the shore, it was disagreeable to drink. Out of respect to
Captain Toker of the Royal Navy, under whom I had once the honour to
serve, his name was given to this Point. Mr. Kendall ascertained its
latitude to be 69 degrees 38 minutes N.; its longitude by reckoning, 132
degrees 18 minutes W.; and the variation of the magnetic needle 50-1/2
degrees easterly. The distance rowed from Refuge Cove was about twelve
miles. A tide pole was erected, by which it appeared that the ebb ran
from four o'clock, the time at which we landed, until ten in the
morning, producing a fall of eighteen inches; but the afternoon tide did
not rise so high, and at 10h. 50 minutes P.M. it was low water again,
the wind blowing fresh from the northward all the time.

The vicinity of Point Toker, like the rest of the lands to the eastward
of Point Encounter, consists of level sands, inclosing pieces of water
which communicate with the estuary of the river, and interspersed with
detached conical hills rising from one to two hundred feet above the
general level. These hills are sometimes escarped by the action of the
water, and are then seen to consist of sand of various colours, in which
very large logs of drift-timber are imbedded. They are covered by a coat
of black vegetable earth, from six inches to a foot in thickness, which
shows that they cannot be of very recent formation, though at some
distant period they may have bee