to the conclusion that they had belonged to pieces of salt beef ordinarily supplied to the navy, and that probably they and the other bones had been exposed to the atmosphere and friction in rivulets of melted snow for four or five summers. The rope was proved by the ropemaker who examined it to have been made at Chatham, of Hungarian hemp, subsequent to 1841. The fragment of canvas which seemed to have been part of a boat's swab, had the Queen's broad arrow painted on it, and the chip of wood was of ash, a tree which does not grow on the banks of any river that falls into the Arctic sea. It had, however, been long exposed to the weather, and was likely to have been cut from a piece of drift timber found lying on the spot, as the mark of an axe was recent compared to the surface of the wood, which might have been exposed to the weather for a century." "The grounds of these conclusions were fully stated in a report made to the Admiralty by Sir Edward Parry, myself, and other officers." Is not here an instance of the civilized man's detecting the traces of a friend or foe with a skill at least equal to that of the savage? Indeed it is in both cases but a common sense applied to the objects, and in a manner most familiar to both parties. The skill of the savage is just such a science, though referred sometimes to instinct.
