Bays. Their persons, dress, mode of living, and language, (so far as the latter is known,) sufficiently prove the whole to be Esquimaux. The interior of a habitation at Norton Sound is an exact resemblance of a Greenlander's in all its disgusting peculiarities. Their singular customs are the same; they prefer their meat and fish raw, use lamps for fires, and have many other minor points of identity. But the most important one towards the argument for a passage has been already stated; namely, that their canoes and fishing apparatus attached to them are the same. It is remarked by Captain Cook that " enough is certain to warrant this judgment, that there is great reason to believe that these nations (i. e., the inhabitants of the N. W. America and the Esquimaux) are of the same extraction; and if so, there can be little doubt of there being a northern communication of some sort by sea between this west side of America and the east side through Baffin's Bay." The Esquimaux are wholly and radically distinct and different from any of the Indians of the interior; they are occupiers of the coast alone; they never quit it, nor could they without undergoing a total change of habits and of life. There is, therefore, the strongest presumption that they must have made their way into Hudson's and Baffin's Bays by the sea-coast; in which case their route must have been either by the shores of a direct water communication, or by the northern and eastern coasts of Greenland, and round Cape Farewell; but there is good reason to believe that the latter was not their route, as the Danes were settled in West Greenland before the Esquimaux, of whom the first mention occurs, when they come in contact in their progress south in the fourteenth century with the most northern Danish colonies. The probability, therefore, is in favour of the first route, on which they have been found at intermediate points of the American coast, by Hearne and Mackenzie. This fact has always appeared to me one of the strongest presumptive proofs, that these gentlemen were really in the immediate neighbourhood of the sea.

May I trespass a little farther on your space, in answer to a question which is very often put to me, viz., What has the late voyage actually effected towards a N. W. passage? This may be fully answered without entering into much detail.

An important service has been rendered in establishing the credit which is due to the journals of our old navigators. So far as we pursued Baffin's track, we had continual reason to admire the faithfulness of his descriptions, and the general correctness of his observations; it may be presumed, therefore, that his account is equally to be relied on where he went beyond us, or approached the coast nearer than we did. His voyages, and those of Davis, have left but few portions of the coast unexplored; but those portions are the most interesting from situation and from circumstance. Although the general direction of the land had impressed Baffin's mind with a persuasion that it formed the Bay which has borne his name, yet it is plain, from his own account, that even he did not consider that he had proved it to be a bay. He had seen the land only at intervals, interrupted by large inlets or openings in the coast, to which he gave the name of sounds; and he felt it necessary to apologize for having sought the coast no better, and to explain the circumstances which had prevented him. It is partly on these inlets that the hopes of persons who have thought since then, on the probability of a passage, have been fixed. It has been expected that one or more will be found to communicate with the northern ocean. The instructions to Lieutenant Young, in 1777, directed him to examine these inlets, but he did not reach the coast. They have remained unexplored, and still remain so. There are altogether seven sounds, of which five only are interesting, from being on the northern and western coasts. Of these the first is Wolstenholm Sound, the entrance of which we passed at a few miles' distance, sufficiently near to identify it by "the island in the midst, which maketh two entrances." Of Whale Sound we could just discern the opening in the coast, being thirty or forty miles distant from us. Of Smith's Sound, "the greatest and longest in all this bay, and which runneth to the north of 78°," we can say nothing, as our extreme north was in 76° 53'. We were near the entrance of Jones's Sound, but not so near as Baffin, who sent his boat on shore; we had thick weather; the sound was full of ice, and not then accessible.

The last is Lancaster's Sound, which Baffin merely opened, but we sailed into for about thirty miles. It is needless to enter into a detail* here of the many encouraging coincidences which awaited us in this, the only one of Baffin's sounds into which we entered; The great depth of water, the sudden increase in its temperature, the absence of ice, the direction of the swell, the width of the shores apart, (exceeding that of Behring's Straits,) and the different character of the country on the north and south sides, especially in the latter appearing to be wooded. This magnificent inlet will no doubt be fully explored by the expedition now fitting, and those who are so employed will have the privilege of being the first whose curiosity will be gratified, in following where it may lead, or in putting its termination, should there prove one, beyond a question t.

From Lancaster's Sound to the entrance of Cumberland Strait the coast was imperfectly known before, and was very imperfectly seen by us; from thence to Repulse Bay, a distance in a direct line of not less than between four and five hundred miles, nothing has been added since the voyages of Davis, Baffin, and of Foxe. The little that is known is favourable rather than otherwise, especially at the Welcome.

It may be, therefore, said that the last voyage has narrowed the ground of inquiry, by establishing the general truth of Baffin's narrative; and that there remains for the employment of the present expedition an examination of all those parts of the coast, which our old navigators have left uncertain, from the west side of Greenland to Repulse Bay.

Believe me, Dear Sir, most sincerely yours,

EDWARD SABINE.

* This has been already done in a letter from an officer of the Alexander, published in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine for December last; a well written, and what is more important, a faithful, account of the proceedings of the expedition. Having said thus much, I trust the writer will excuse my adding, that I do not agree with him in his remarks on Captain Flinders.

1

+ It is worthy of notice, and has not been, I believe, remarked before, that the only one of Baffin's seven sounds which has been since examined, namely, the " fair sound in latitude 70° 20'," when he anchored for two days on his way up the Greenland Coast, proves to have been, in fact, the entrance of the Waigat Straits. So easy is it for the most experienced person to be mistaken, except upon a very close examination.

ART. XI. Description of an Ore of Copper from Cornwall. By William Phillips, F. L. S., Member of the Geological Societies of London and Cornwall.

AMONG the many ores of copper which have been raised from the Cornish mines, there is one which has received so little notice, that it has been mentioned only by one mineralogist, and, even in that instance, only with reference to one of its crystalline forms. It is termed by Sowerby, in his British Mineralogy (tab. 503, 'grey sulphuret of copper, in dodecahedral crystals.' This mineral is by no means common, although it has been found in several mines. I possess about twenty specimens, which have enabled me to examine with attention its crystalline forms; some of which at least are not analogous to those of any other substance found in that of the rhomboidal dodecahedron; and it differs so greatly from all the other ores of copper, as to induce both my brother and myself long since to adopt the conclusion, that this mineral differs from those ores, not less in its chemical than in some of its external characters; and, therefore, that its apparent claim to the distinction of a new species ought to be investigated.

This mineral varies internally from lead-grey to iron-black. It rarely occurs massive, but is commonly crystallized in the form of the rhomboidal dodecahedron, either perfect, or variously modified; also, though rarely, in the form of the cube and octohedron, of which the edges and angles are replaced. Externally the crystals are often nearly of a tin-white colour, and very splendent; sometimes lead-grey, with but little lustre; occasionally iron-black and dull.

The fracture is imperfectly lamellar, and uneven, with the appearance (by reflection from surfaces produced by mechanical division) of natural joints, parallel to the planes of the rhomboidal dodecahedron; the lustre of the fragments varies from glistening to shining, and is metallic. Its specific gravity is 4.375.

It is harder than vitreous copper, (cuivre sulfuré, Haüy,) and the fahlerz (cuivre gris, Haüy,) which it readily scratches, and is brittle. Its powder is reddish-grey.

Before the blow-pipe on charcoal it first burns with a blue flame, and slight decrepitation; to which succeed copious arsenical vapours, leaving a greyish-black scoria, which affects the magnetic

needle.

I have observed twenty-seven varieties in the forms of the crystals of this substance; of these twelve are selected (plate II.) as affording a sufficient clue to the whole. The rhomboidal dodecahedron (fig. 1,) may be considered as the primary crystal; and all the twenty-seven varieties as arising from combinations of the planes, though extremely variable in shape, of four modifications, observable in figs. 2 to 7, which, except the small triangular planes of fig. 7, are all more or less common to several substances, assuming the form of the rhomboidal dodecahedron, the cube, or the regular octohedron.

The remaining five figures (8 to 12) require an observation or two. In these there is not that symmetry of form which might be expected to exist in the planes, modifying so perfect a geometrical figure as the rhomboidal dodecahedron. From the symmetrical manner in which these forms are usually delineated, we might expect that when one solid angle is replaced by a plane, the rest should be modified in the same manner, if not precisely in a similar degree; and the same with the edges ;-we should at least expect to find them similarly modified, even though the degree should differ. Let us compare figure 9 with figure 5; the planes of the primary form, and those of the first, second, and third modifications are visible in both. Fig. 5 is perfectly symmetrical; while fig. 9, though symmetrical in one sense, is far removed from symmetry in the sense in which figure 5 is considered as being so: one half of the crystals is seen in each figure. In 5 six of the primitive planes are visible, in 9 only five; in 5 three planes of the first modification are seen, in 9 only one; in 5 there are four planes of the second modification, in 9 only two; in 5, ten planes of the third modification are seen, in 9 only two. It is not therefore that some planes are enlarged, so as to diminish others in size, but to their actual exclusion; and hence the want of that symmetry which might be expected when the primary crystal is a perfect geometrical solid. Indeed, this figure, together with the crystals represented by figs. 8, 10, 11,