MORAL CHARACTERISTICS.
The Eskimo as a rule is strictly honest, and the occasional thief is looked down upon by the wild native as well as by the partly civilized one. Not quite as truthful as they are honest, they still compare favourably in that respect with the white men. When the source of a lie is traced it is found to be due to a mistaken politeness, the native intending to please by answering in a manner which he thinks will be agreeable to the questioner. Another cause is due to the etiquette of the people, whereby a man always belittles his success in hunting or other actions. When these reasons are unknown to the casual stranger among these people he classes them as liars, when the case is not so, for an Eskimo seldom, or never, makes a false statement to shield himself from the consequences of ill-doing. Of course there are black sheep in every flock, and the Eskimos have their share of them.
Judged by the standards of sexual morals of civilization, the Eskimo is a minus quantity; but who is to say what is right in this respect among a people situated as they are.
In temperament they are phlegmatic and slow to anger, being good-natured rather than otherwise, but like all savages, liable to ungovernable bursts of rage when roused. As a rule they are proud and independent, with a greater sense of gratitude for favours received than their Indian neighbours.
They are not cleanly in their habits, and this is not surprising considering that for the greater part of the year they must melt all the water they use. The length of time required for the decay of animal matter in the cool northern regions renders personal or culinary cleanliness a matter of sentiment and not of health, and they do not pay great attention to sentiment.
Being accustomed from childhood to the strong odours of seal blubber and rancid meat, they are not at all delicate in their senses of taste and smell, and it occasionally happens that their liking for tainted meat ends disastrously, especially when a rotten porpoise furnishes the food. The writer knows of several deaths due to poisoning from this cause.
As a people, they are very hospitable and kind; but like other savages would probably soon tire of continuous efforts to support helpless whites cast upon them, especially when the guests assume a superiority over their hosts.
Upper Encampment, Chesterfield Inlet.
CHAPTER VIII.
GEOLOGY.
The following summary of the geology of the northeastern coast of America and of the Arctic islands is based, so far as the southern and eastern portions of that region are concerned, upon the observations made on the cruise of the Neptune, and is supplemented by the reports of previous explorers in the areas beyond the limit of the voyage of that vessel. The geological work of the Arctic explorers until recent years was necessarily poor and disconnected owing to the absence of trained men, and to such work being of secondary importance among the objects of the expeditions.
The observations of these earlier explorers were carefully gathered from the different narratives, and ably summarized by Dr. G. M. Dawson in a report on the Geology of the Northern Portion of the Dominion of Canada, published in 1886. This work has been largely followed in the present report, but such corrections have been made as are justified by the knowledge gained in explorations since the date of its publication.
The notes on the geology of the southern part of Baffin island are from the observations of Dr. R. Bell, while those on Ellesmere island and the Sverdrup islands are based on the work of P. Schei, the geologist of the Fram.
The rocks of the Arctic islands and of the northern coasts of the continent present an almost continuous ascending series from the Archæan to the Tertiary, while the upper loose material represents various phases of the Glacial age and of the subsequent Post-Glacial deposits.
Only isolated attempts have been made to subdivide the Archæan complex into Laurentian, Huronian and other members of the system. This lack of subdivision is due to want of detailed knowledge; not to the absence of the various members of the complex in these northern regions, where the greater number of the members are known to occur.
The Palæozoic rocks are well represented on the islands by thick deposits extending upwards in a continuous series from the Cambro-Silurian to the upper beds of the Carboniferous. Rocks older than the Galena-Trenton are only found in the northern part of Ellesmere island, where a series of beds appears to connect the Upper Huronian formations with the lower members of the Cambro-Silurian.
Mesozoic rocks are found on the northern Parry islands, on the Sverdrup group and on the western and northern sides of Ellesmere island.
Tertiary formations occur on the northwestern islands, on the northern part of Ellesmere, as well as on the northern and eastern parts of Baffin island.
The former presence of a continental ice-cap is attested along the northwestern shores of Hudson bay and in the southern part of Baffin island, by the rounded and polished rock surfaces, which are everywhere well marked by the ice striae, often in several sets showing changes in the direction of the ice movement. On the east side of Baffin the rock surfaces show signs of rounding and smoothing by ice, but the striae are not well marked, and the glaciation does not appear to have been nearly so intense as to the south and westward. Passing northward up the western side of Davis strait and Baffin bay the evidence of intense glaciation becomes less and less, that on Ellesmere the present condition of the local ice-covering would appear to represent nearly as great an amount of glaciation as ever occurred there.
The sequence of earth movements and physical conditions, read from the geological formations of the northeast, are as follows: An ancient floor of crystalline rocks, largely of igneous origin, represents the most ancient crust of the earth. These, associated with ancient bedded deposits and cut by dark basic intrusions of trap and allied rocks, were at a very early period so crushed and foliated that it is now impossible to separate them. Upon this ancient complex was laid down a series of bedded deposits, chiefly sandstones and dolomites, associated with contemporaneous traps, as may be seen along both the shores of Smith sound. Following this came a great outburst of granite and other acidic igneous rocks which, over large areas, inclosed, penetrated, compressed and otherwise altered the sedimentary deposits to such an extent that it is now impossible to separate them from the older complex upon which they were originally deposited. Only in a few comparatively small areas were the conditions of the granite intrusion such as to allow the sedimentary deposits to preserve their original unaltered conditions. All the above rocks are grouped in the Archæan, and further and closer examination will probably show that it contains all the members of the Laurentian and Huronian found in the more southern Archæan regions of Canada.
Except in the northern part of Ellesmere, there is a considerable time-break in the geological sequence in the northeast between the Archæan rocks and the Cambro-Silurian strata which rest unconformably upon them. Schei found at Bache peninsula, on the eastern side of Ellesmere, a series of stratified sedimentary rocks resting upon the northern flank of the Archæan and containing fossils of Cambrian age. These deposits have a thickness of nearly 1,500 feet, and are overlaid by limestones containing Cambro-Silurian fossils.
The Archæan rocks at the time of deposition of the lower beds of the Cambro-Silurian limestones appear to have extended southward from the vicinity of Bache peninsula in a gradually widening ridge along the western side of Baffin bay and Davis strait. In this manner they attained a width of seventy miles on the southern side of North Devon, and occupied the entire southern shore of Baffin island, being separated from the great area of Labrador by the depression of Hudson strait, which probably existed at that early period. Islands of Archæan rocks may also have risen above the surface of the Cambro-Silurian sea in the present island of North Somerset and on Melville and Boothia peninsulas, as well as on other portions of the northern coasts of the mainland, to the west of Hudson bay.
The western Cambro-Silurian sea filled the present depression of Hudson bay, and extended far to the south and westward of its present limits, outliers of limestone containing fossils of this age, and very similar in mineral character, being found in the valleys of the great lakes of Manitoba. From Manitoba these rocks have been traced southward into the United States, so that at the time of their deposition the Cambro-Silurian sea occupied a great basin open to the Arctic ocean and extending southward into the middle of the continent.
This was the time of maximum encroachment of the northern ocean, after which the land gradually rose, and the sea slowly receded. Owing to the great lapse of time and the eroding of the thick ice-cap in the more southern regions, it is exceedingly difficult to now trace the boundaries of the narrowing sea during Silurian and Devonian times. Cambro-Silurian limestones containing fossils which refer them to the Galena-Trenton, are widespread over the northern islands and in a wide margin along the western and southern shores of Hudson bay. Outliers of these rocks occur at the head of Frobisher bay in the southwest part of Baffin island and on Akpatok island in Ungava bay. As before stated, similar limestones are found in the lake valleys of Manitoba, and it is quite possible that these limestones were once continuous with those of Hudson bay, the present break having been caused by the erosion of the glacier.
The upward continuation of these limestones containing Silurian fossils occupies a corresponding but slightly circumscribed area. These Silurian limestones form the characteristic abrupt cliffs of the islands on both sides of Lancaster sound, and continuing southward occupy the larger parts of Southampton, Coats and Mansfield islands in Hudson bay, as well as the low lands of the western part of Baffin island. They are not well marked, and are probably considerably thinner on the western side of Hudson bay, but are found in the Winnipeg basin.
The Devonian gradually emerges from the Silurian in the cliffs of the islands to the north of Lancaster sound, and forms the lower parts of the cliffs of the southern side of Ellesmere. Devonian fossils are not found in the limestones of the islands of Hudson bay, and only occur in a narrow belt on the low lands to the west and southwest of James bay. Similar rocks form the upper beds of the Winnipeg basin.
There is no break in the passage from Devonian to Carboniferous in the rocks forming the Parry islands and the southern part of Ellesmere, where Carboniferous rocks occupy wide areas on these northern islands, but are not found to the southward of Lancaster sound, showing that the Palæozoic sea had retreated that far north before the close of the Devonian.
The land rose above the ocean at the close of the Carboniferous, and with the exception of the northern parts of the Parry islands, the Sverdrup group and the western part of Ellesmere has not been deeply submerged since. Rocks of Mesozoic age, belonging to the Alpine Triassic, have been found in the last-named places, but in no other localities to the southward within the limits of this report.
Considerable earth movements occurred at the close of the Mesozoic period, causing those and older rocks to be highly tilted and folded.
Another slight submergence took place in the Miocene Tertiary, when shallow water deposits of sand, gravel and clay, associated with beds of lignite, were laid down in the wide valleys along the margins of several of the Arctic islands. Such deposits are known to exist in Banks island, on the western side of Ellesmere and along the northern and eastern sides of Baffin island. There is little doubt that other deposits of this age will be discovered when more systematic search has been made for them in these northern regions. From the character of the fossil plants found in these deposits there can be little doubt that during the Miocene the climate of these northern islands was much warmer than at present, and approached a tropical condition.
The conditions of the land and water surfaces during the Glacial period differed little from those at present, except that there has been a considerable uplift of the land, as proved by the marine terraces found along the coasts. The maximum uplift probably amounted to 700 feet along the eastern side of Baffin island, and was perhaps slightly less on the islands farther north, where Schei reports beaches 600 feet and upwards above the present sea level. This being the case, a new explanation must be found for the depression and subsequent uplift of the land covered by ice, if the uplift be practically the same in northern Ellesmere, where the accumulation of ice is nearly as great to-day as at any previous time, while in the southern part of Baffin island a great thickness of ice was present during the Glacial period and has now completely disappeared. Perhaps we have been taking cause for effect, and the uplift due to some unknown cause may have been the cause of a lessening of the ice; certainly the almost equal rise of the land throughout the Arctic islands is an argument against the subsidence of the northern lands being due to the burden of the ice-cap, and the subsequent uplift due to the disappearance of that burden.