Page:Material Culture of the Iglulik Eskimos.djvu/21
to the north-east a fairly high, plateau-like, primitive rock land, falling rather steeply on all sides, especially at the high north-east coast, and to the south-west a low limestone country, at the coasts characterised by the same regular shore ridges, in the interior changing from desertlike limestone stretches to endless swamps, a terrain which, on account of the sharp edges of the limestone fragments, is extremely difficult to pass over in summer. The coasts of the limestone country are very flat — watery and difficult of access, full of dangerous rocks.
The terrain of Cockburn is rather varied. The primitive rock peneplain continues from Melville Peninsula on the far side of Fury and Hecla Strait and occupies a large part of the south of Cockburn Land: round Gifford Fjord, the southern part of Admiralty Inlet and north of Murray Maxwell Inlet and east of Steensby Fjord; heigths of 2–300 m are not rare here. The low silurian limestone country of Iglulik also continues on the far side of Fury and Hecla Strait, where it appears on Jens Munk Island, west of Steensby Fjord and over Koch Island and Sadleq towards Piling. In addition, the silurian occupies the whole of the north-western part of Cockburn Land west of Navy Board Inlet and Milne Inlet, where it forms a plateau land of 2–300 m height, of regularly deposited layers of limestone and sandstone, falling abruptly towards the coasts and the deeply indented fjords and valleys. South-east of Milne Inlet there is a similar, but rather lower limestone plateau, partly disintegrated into a number of