352
Friday Mar. 23
We started this morning. over worked and
limping, rather as men ending a journey
than beginning one. after four hours of
forced walking we reached the reindeer
feeding grounds but were too late,: the
animals had left at least two hours before
out arrival. An extensive rolling
country rather a lacustrine plain than a
true plateau was covered with traces of
animal life - the snow had been torn up
by the hoofs of the reindeer in patches of
four and five yards in diameter over areas
of twenty & 30 acres - Such [resorts?] studded
the extensive levels with them and wherever we were in every
case examined [the ground? ? it ?] covered with grasses
and Alopecurus and destitute of lichens
{whether}
we scouted it over the protruding [?] and
found a couple of Ptarmagan: both of those
Petersen shot. Thoroughly knocked up our
little party reached the brig in the evening
after a walk over a heavy snow lined
country of twenty miles. Never the less
I had a walk fill of instructive material
the frozen channel of Mary River abounds
with nobles sections and scenes of splendid
wildness and desolation - I am
too tired to epitomise here my note books
record but I may say that the opportunity
which I had to day (given) of comparing the
terrain & boulder lines of Mary River
& Charlotte Wood Fiord enables me to
assent positively the interesting fact of
a secular elevation of the crust - commencing
at some as yet undetermined point
N. of 74o and continuing to the Great
Glacier - and the high Northern latitudes
of Grinnell Land - This elevation as
connected with the equally well sus-
EN