CHAPTER V.

THE ARCTIC ISLANDS.

Little is known of the interior of even the more southerly of the Arctic islands. Up to the present time exploration has been largely confined to their coasts, with only a few isolated lines run across their interiors. In this way, however, sufficient knowledge has been obtained to give a general idea of the geography, which will probably be greatly modified when future explorations have given more information.

Thanks to the work done by the numerous search parties for the unfortunate Franklin and his companions, the coast lines of many of even the most northern islands have been thoroughly explored. The work left undone by these parties has since been practically finished by the British expedition of 1875, and by the work of Greely, Peary and Sverdrup.

The physical features of the coasts visited by the _Neptune_ have been described in detail in the narrative of the voyage, and need not be repeated here. All other information concerning the geography of these northern lands has been obtained from the printed records of earlier Arctic travellers, and is here used to give some general idea of the extent and physical condition of these islands.

The islands of the Arctic archipelago extend from the north side of Hudson bay and Hudson strait, in 62° N. latitude to 83° N. latitude, a distance of 1,500 miles. Their greatest extension westward is along the 73rd parallel, from the west side of Baffin bay to 125° W. longitude, a distance of 500 miles.

The islands have, for convenience, been divided into four natural groups, as follows:—

GROUP I.—The islands situated in the northern parts of Hudson bay and Hudson strait. These include the great island of Southampton, together with the smaller islands of Coats, Mansfield, Nottingham, Salisbury, Charles, Akpatok, Resolution and many other small ones still unnamed.

GROUP II.—Includes the islands lying between Hudson bay and Hudson strait, on the south, and Lancaster sound on the north, the western boundary of the group being Prince Regent inlet. The largest of all the islands, Baffin, belongs to this group. The only other island of considerable size is Bylot, while the remainder are small and fringe these two large islands.

GROUP III.—This contains the islands lying west of Prince Regent inlet and south of Lancaster sound, and its western continuation, Barrow strait. These islands are almost inaccessible, as they lie to the west and south of the ice-covered waters of Lancaster sound, the only channel by which they may be reached from the eastward; while the western islands of the group can only be reached by passing through the Arctic ocean from Bering strait, a long distance to the eastward of them. They are comprised of Banks, Victoria, Prince of Wales, North Somerset and King William islands.

GROUP IV.—The islands north of Lancaster sound and Barrow strait. Those include the great islands of Ellesmere and North Devon, whose eastern sides front on Baffin bay and Smith sound; the Parry islands—Cornwallis, Bathurst, Byam Martin, Melville, Eglinton and Prince Patrick—all on the north side of Barrow strait; the Sverdrup islands—Axel Heiberg, Ellef Ringnes, Amund Ringnes, King Christian and North Cornwall—situated to the west of Ellesmere and to the north of the Parry islands.

The following is a list of the islands of the archipelago, having an area greater than 500 square miles:—

Area square miles. Group I.— Southampton.... 19,100 Group II.— Baffin......... 211,000 Bylot.......... 5,100 Group III.— Banks.......... 26,400 Victoria....... 74,400 Prince of Wales 14,000 North Somerset. 9,000 King William... 6,200 Group IV.— Ellesmere...... 76,600 North Devon.... 21,900 Bathurst....... 7,000 Cornwallis..... 2,700 Eglinton....... 700 Prince Patrick. 7,100 Melville....... 16,200 Axel Heiberg... 13,200 Ellef Ringnes.. 4,800 Amund Ringnes.. 2,200 King Christian. 2,600 North Cornwall. 600 ———— Total area..... 520,800

The configuration and the physical features of the islands depend upon the character of the rocks that form them; in consequence, a brief description of the geology of these northern regions is here given.

Granites, gneisses and other crystalline rocks, very similar to those forming the Archæan system of more southern regions, occupy the eastern shores of the great islands fronting on Baffin bay and Davis strait, from Smith sound to Hudson strait. On Ellesmere island these rocks form a wide band down the east side from the neighbourhood of Cape Sabine to Jones sound, where the western boundary is upwards of fifty miles from the mouth of the sound. They occupy the eastern part of North Devon, reaching, on its south side, some seventy miles up Lancaster sound. The whole of Bylot island and that part of northern Baffin island to the eastward of Admiralty inlet is formed of these rocks. The great island of Baffin has upwards of three-quarters of its area underlain by Archæan granites and other crystalline rocks, while the eastern side of Southampton belongs to that formation which is also found at Salisbury, Nottingham and Charles islands of Group I.

To the westward of this wide rim of Archæan rocks is a great basin which has been filled with deposits of limestone, sandstone and other bedded rocks belonging to the Palæozoic or middle formations of the earth’s crust. These rocks extend upward from the Silurian to the Carboniferous.

The lower rocks, consisting largely of limestones, are the most widely distributed. They extend southward and westward far beyond the limits included in this report. The rocks newer than these Silurian limestones are not found south of Lancaster sound and Barrow strait, except on the northern part of Banks island at the extreme west of the archipelago. These rocks of Devonian and Carboniferous age occupy the Parry islands and the western and northern parts of Ellesmere, and in many places contain good deposits of coal.

A yet newer series of rocks belonging to the Mesozoic are found along the western edge of Ellesmere and on the Sverdrup islands. Isolated patches of later Tertiary age probably also occur along the northern and eastern coasts of Baffin island, and are of importance in that they are often associated with deposits of lignite coal. Small areas of this age have been found in the Parry islands and on the western part of Banks island.

On these northern islands the country underlain by the crystalline Archæan rocks is very similar in physical character to like areas of more southern regions. Where these rocks occur, the coast is usually greatly broken by irregularly shaped bays and headlands. The shores are often fringed with rocky islands, and the adjacent sea-bottom is liable to be very uneven. The land, as a rule, rises rapidly from the coast into an uneven plateau or tableland, whose general level is broken by ridges of rounded hills which seldom rise more than a few hundred feet above the general level. The elevation of the tableland varies from a few hundred feet to an extreme height of nearly five thousand feet.

In the northern parts the surface of this Archæan tableland is usually covered with a thick ice-cap, through which only the loftier hills protrude. The valleys leading down to the coast from the ice-cap are filled with large glaciers which project into the bays, where they discharge numerous icebergs. As the ice-cap becomes thinner in the more southern parts the glaciers become less active, and generally terminate without reaching the sea, and consequently no icebergs are formed from them.

The country, formed of the limestones and other Palæozoic rocks, differs in its physical character from that already described. On the northern islands, where these rocks attain a considerable thickness, the land rises in abrupt cliffs directly from the sea. The summits of these cliffs vary in elevation from 1,000 to 3,000 feet, while the country behind is a tableland rising in steps inland, the front of each step being a cliff usually of much less thickness than the initial one by which the land rises from the sea. In the more northern islands the higher portions of these tablelands support ice-caps generally much thinner than those covering the adjoining Archæan tablelands. The coasts composed of these flat-bedded limestones are deeply indented by narrow bays or fiords in the valleys of the more important streams; each small stream and rill flowing off the land has left its sculptured mark upon the cliffs, so that the whole resembles, on a great scale, the banks of a stream cut into a deep deposit of clay. This minute sculpturing of the rocks points to their having been elevated above the sea for a very long period, during which time the streams were actively at work cutting their valleys down to the sea-level.

These high abrupt cliffs are characteristic of the islands on both sides of Lancaster sound and to the northward of it.

The limestone islands of Hudson bay and that portion of southwest Baffin underlain by these rocks are very low and flat, with shallow water extending several miles from their shores.

Those northern islands, wholly or in part formed of the Mesozoic rocks, are characterized by low shores and no great elevation inland. At Ponds inlet, where an area of Tertiary deposits occurs, the country overlying it forms a wide plain deeply cut into by the streams that drain it.

ISLANDS OF GROUP I.

The islands of Hudson bay and Hudson strait are, naturally, divided into two sections by their physical characters, the first composed of those formed from the crystalline Archæan rocks, the second of the low islands of limestone. The first division includes Resolution, Big, Salisbury, Charles and Nottingham islands, together with many smaller ones along the north side of Hudson strait. These islands are physically alike, being moderately high and having ragged shore lines.

Resolution island lies on the north side of the eastern entrance to Hudson strait. It is nearly forty miles long, and averages twenty-five miles in breadth. The general elevation of the interior is under five hundred feet, and the land appears to rise quickly from the shores. The island is fringed by many rocky islets, and a number of good harbours are said to occur on all sides of it, but owing to the strong currents about the coast it has been rarely visited, except by ships caught in the ice.

Big island lies close to the north shore of the strait, and about one hundred and forty miles beyond its eastern entrance. The island is triangular in shape; the longest side, parallel to the mainland, has a length of thirty miles, the other two sides being each about twenty-five miles long. In physical character and elevation it is very like Resolution.

Charles is a narrow island some twenty-five miles long, situated in the southern part of the strait, being distant about twenty-five miles from the south side; its west end is ninety miles from Cape Wolstenholme at the western end of the strait. The eastern half of the island is high and rugged, and is connected with the lower rocky western end by a narrow sandy neck. The highest part of the western end does not reach an altitude of two hundred feet, and terminates in a long low point with shallow water extending from it for several miles.

Nottingham and Salisbury islands lie in the western entrance to Hudson strait. Their longer axis lies northwest and southeast. Nottingham is the more southward, and is about thirty-five miles long and averages about ten miles across. Salisbury lies to the northeast of Nottingham, and is separated from it by a deep channel about fifteen miles wide. The northern island is the larger, being nearly forty miles long and averaging fifteen miles across. Both are high and rugged, with a number of bays affording good harbours, especially at the southeast and northwest ends. The general altitude of these islands is nearly five hundred feet.

The second division of the islands of Group I. includes the large island of Southampton, together with Coats, Mansfield and Akpatok islands.

Southampton is situated in the northern part of Hudson bay, which it divides into Fox channel on its east side and Roes Welcome on the other side, being separated from the mainland at its north end by the narrow Frozen strait. The island attains its greatest length from north to south, covering three degrees of latitude, or a distance of two hundred and ten miles. Its greatest breadth of two hundred miles is across its southern part; its eastern side trends northwest, and its western shore lies north and south, so that the shape is practically a triangle, having an area of 19,100 square miles. The greater part of the island is occupied by flat-bedded limestone, causing the southern and western shores to be generally low and flat, with a margin of shallow water extending several miles from the land. Along the eastern side a band of crystalline rocks extends from Seahorse point to the north end of the island, and this forms much higher land with bolder water adjoining than is found elsewhere.

Coats island lies directly south of Southampton, from which it is separated by Evans and Fisher straits. With the exception of a ridge of moderately high land crossing the island diagonally at its eastern end, the island is low and flat, having no elevation of over a hundred feet. Its longer axis of one hundred miles lies nearly northeast and southwest, while its greatest breadth is about twenty-five miles.

Mansfield island, being wholly composed of limestone, is everywhere low and flat, with no elevations greatly exceeding a hundred feet. The island, with a length of seventy-five miles, lies parallel to and about that distance from the east coast of Hudson bay, its north end being on a line with Cape Wolstenholme.

Akpatok island, included in this division on account of its being of limestone formation, lies in the mouth of Ungava bay of Hudson strait. It is nearly fifty miles long, and lies diagonally to the west coast of the bay, so that its southern end is about thirty miles from the mouth of Payne river, while the north end is nearly twice that distance from Cape Hopes Advance. The limestone forming the island being more solid than that of the western islands, the shore line is bolder and more broken, the island rising in low cliffs directly from the sea, and having a general elevation considerably higher than that of those just described.

ISLANDS OF GROUP II.

Baffin island, with its area of 211,000 square miles, is the largest and probably the most important and valuable of the Arctic islands. Its southern shores form the north side of Hudson strait; its eastern side extends from Hudson strait to Lancaster sound, or from 61° N. latitude to 74° N. latitude, a distance of over 850 miles fronting on Davis strait and Baffin bay. The island is bounded on the north by Lancaster sound and on the east by Prince Regent inlet, Fury and Hecla strait and Fox channel. As Archæan crystalline rocks occupy the greater part of the island, the Silurian limestones being almost confined to the western side, the coast is very irregular, and is indented by deep bays, especially along the east and north sides. The larger ones on the eastern side, passing northward, are Frobisher bay, Cumberland gulf, Exeter sound, Home bay, Clyde river, Scott inlet, and Ponds inlet, together with many more of considerable size and length. The principal indentations of the northern coast are the long narrow bays named Navy Board and Admiralty inlets. Much of the western coast is at present unexplored, but enough is known of it to say that no very long bays are to be found there.

Islands are very numerous along those parts of the coast formed of the crystalline rocks, and these vary greatly in size.

The coast between Ponds inlet and Cape Dier to the northward of Cumberland gulf has never been properly surveyed, and the present charts of this part are, according to the whaling captains, quite erroneous.

The eastern coast of Baffin island is generally high and rocky. The land rises quickly from the sea, often in abrupt cliffs, to elevations of a thousand feet or more, after which the upward slope is more gentle as the land rises towards the interior tableland. The general elevation of the tableland, to the south of Cumberland gulf, ranges from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, while to the northward this wide coastal area is much higher, reaching a general elevation of 5,000 feet, with hills rising above that perhaps one or two thousand feet higher. Inland to the south of Ponds inlet the general elevation does not appear to exceed 3,000 feet, and to the westward is considerably lower. The land fronting on Lancaster sound, between Navy Board and Admiralty inlets, is very rough and broken, and rises in the interior to perhaps a general elevation of 2,000 feet. The remainder of this northern coast between Admiralty inlet and Prince Regent inlet is formed of flat-bedded limestone, and rises in steep cliffs about a thousand feet high to a comparatively flat plateau. This plateau with its cliffs continues down the east side of Prince Regent inlet nearly to Fury and Hecla strait, the land gradually becoming lower towards the south. The eastern side of Fox channel is as yet unexplored, and all information concerning it has been obtained from the Eskimos. They describe the coast as generally low, and much the same in character as that of the limestone islands of Hudson bay. The limestone country terminates some distance north of King cape, which marks the western limit of Hudson strait on its north side, and the coast is again formed of crystalline rock, with its characteristic broken outline and fringe of islands. The northern shores of Hudson strait along its western half although bold are not high, and the interior probably does not reach a general elevation of 1,000 feet. To the eastward of Big island the coast becomes higher, and the land rises slowly inland to elevations of 2,000 to 3,000 feet.

The highlands to the northward of Cumberland gulf, along the east side of the island, appear to be covered with an ice-cap, from which glaciers flow down the valleys leading to the many bays on this coast. These glaciers are neither as heavy nor as active as those of the islands north of Lancaster sound, and only rarely do they project into the sea and discharge icebergs. The lower lands adjoining the coast are usually free of snow during the summer. The ice-cap, according to the natives, does not extend far inland, the interior being practically free of snow during the summer months. About Cumberland gulf and to the southward the highlands are partly snow-covered, but the patches are detached, and there are no glaciers sufficiently large to discharge into the sea. The Grinnell glacier is an ice-cap covering the summit of the highland between Frobisher bay and Hudson strait. It is said to discharge by one small glacier into a fiord on the south side of Frobisher bay, but the ice from it rarely breaks off as icebergs.

The northern land between Admiralty and Navy Board inlets is ice-covered, with glaciers filling its seaward valleys, and with the separating rocky ridges rising dark and forbidding from the general field of white. A thin ice-cap covers the northern part of the limestone plateau on the east side of Prince Regent inlet.

The western interior of the northern half of Baffin island is described by the Eskimos as a rough plain, probably less than 1,000 feet in elevation, diversified by rolling hills with numerous lakes in the valleys between. This country is well covered with an Arctic vegetation which provides food for large bands of barren-ground caribou.

There are two large lakes in the lower country of the southwestern part of the island called Nettilling and Amadjuak; both are upwards of a hundred miles long, and the low lands surrounding them are the favourite feeding grounds for large bands of barren-ground caribou. The natives from Cumberland gulf, Frobisher bay and the north shores of Hudson strait resort to the shores of these lakes annually to slaughter large numbers of these animals for food and for their skins, which are used for winter clothing and bedding.

Bylot island lies to the northeast of Baffin, being separated from the latter by the Ponds and Navy Board inlets. It is roughly circular in outline, with a diameter of nearly ninety miles. In physical character it closely resembles the northeastern part of Baffin, already described, being formed from crystalline rocks. The general elevation of the interior ranges from 2,000 to 3,000 feet, and the coastal highlands are covered with an ice-cap which extends ten or fifteen miles inland, the interior, according to the Eskimos, being free of snow during the summer. The ice-rim feeds numerous glaciers, some of which discharge bergs.

ISLANDS OF GROUP III.

As has been already stated, the islands of this group can only be reached with considerable difficulty on account of their position. Little is known of them beyond the outline of their shores, and even these have not been fully traced in the case of the more western islands.

North Somerset, separated from the northern part of Baffin by Prince Regent inlet, is the best known of the group, and its northern and eastern shores have long been resorts of the whalers in their search for the valuable Right whale in the adjoining waters. The less valuable white whales are often abundant along these shores, and are taken by the whalers when the larger whales cannot be obtained. The greatest length of this island is from north to south, being 140 miles, while its extreme breadth in the northern part is about a hundred miles. In shape it somewhat resembles a ham with the shank to the southward, where the narrow Bellot strait separates it from Boothia peninsula, a northern extension of the continent, remarkable for containing the North Magnetic Pole within its area. The northern coast of North Somerset is formed of limestone cliffs; these are lower and less abrupt than on the northern Baffin coast, while the bays indenting them are wider and not so long as is usual on such coasts. Along the eastern side the cliffs rise nearly 1,000 feet directly from the sea. To the south, along this shore, the cliffs gradually decline, until the low lands about Creswell bay are passed, when the country again becomes high and the coast bold. The western side of the island, facing on Peel sound, is occupied by a wide strip of Archæan rocks, and the physical character corresponds to that of other like areas. This coast never rises above the 1,000 feet contour, and towards the south is considerably lower. There does not appear to be any continuous ice-cap upon North Somerset, and the glacial conditions are confined to isolated snow patches, with small glaciers in some of the larger valleys. These glaciers do not discharge icebergs.

Prince of Wales island is separated from North Somerset by the narrow channel of Peel sound and Franklin strait. It is irregular in shape, being broken by a number of large bays. The greatest length, 175 miles, is from north to south, while the broadest part is 125 miles across. The northeast corner is occupied by crystalline rocks, the remainder being of limestone. In no place does the elevation of the interior plain exceed 500 feet.

King William island lies to the southward of Prince of Wales island in an angle formed by the northern coast of the continent and Boothia peninsula. It is described as a low barren island of limestone, of triangular shape, with a base seventy miles long on the northwest side, the other sides having each a length of nearly one hundred miles. The island is noted for the discovery on its shores of the bodies of several of the ill-fated members of Franklin’s expedition, together with the record of Franklin’s death and the crushing of the ships in the heavy ice off the northwest coast of the island.

Victoria island is the third largest of the Arctic archipelago, its area being 74,400 square miles. Only the western and southern shores of this great island have been explored, and practically nothing is known of its interior. It is 450 miles long from northwest to southeast, and is over 300 miles across in the widest part. With the exception of a small area in the northwest, it is formed of Silurian limestone. The island is generally level, the greater part of it being well below an elevation of 500 feet.

Banks island is the most western of this group; it is separated from Victoria by the narrow Prince of Wales strait. Its greatest length from northeast to southwest is about 250 miles, while the average breadth is about 120 miles. The island is formed largely of the softer rocks of the Carboniferous, and is considerably higher than those to the eastward, the greater part of the interior being above 1,000 feet, while in the southern part the plateau reaches an altitude of 3,000 feet. The soil from the Carboniferous rocks being richer and deeper than that on the bare limestone islands, supports a good growth of arctic vegetation, and in consequence the valleys leading to the coast are the feeding grounds of large bands of musk-oxen, barren-ground caribou and arctic hares, this abundance of animal life being in marked contrast to that on the barren limestone islands. The lowlands bordering the sea in the northwest part of the island are formed of Miocene-Tertiary deposits, containing numerous trees allied to those now covering the wooded northern parts of the mainland, far to the southward. The presence of these trees shows that, in the period before the Ice-age, the climate of these northern islands must have been much warmer than at present.

ISLANDS OF GROUP IV.

The island of Ellesmere is only second in size to Baffin island, and is remarkable for its north end extending to beyond the eighty-third parallel of N. latitude, or to within 500 miles of the North Pole. Its length from north to south covers nearly seven degrees of latitude, or approximately 500 miles; its greatest breadth across the northern part exceeds 200 miles. Being deeply indented by large bays both on its east and west sides, its outline is quite irregular. Smith sound, and its northern extensions Kennedy and Robeson channels, separate the eastern shores of Ellesmere from the northern part of Greenland.

The general elevation of the island is high, and probably exceeds 2,500 feet. In the northern part the United States mountains are upwards of 4,000 feet high, while isolated peaks of this range reach a height of almost 5,000 feet. It is remarkable that this high northern land is not covered with a continuous ice-cap, but this is probably due to the small precipitation of moisture derived from the ice-covered northern seas. The first large ice-cap is situated in the interior, to the south of 81° N. latitude, and extends southward to 79° N. latitude, where an area of lower lands occurs near the junction of the Palæozoic rocks of the north and the Archæan of the southeast. The southeastern quarter of the island occupied by crystalline rocks has a general elevation of 3,000 feet or over, and is covered by a great ice-cap, with numerous glaciers discharging from it into the eastern bays. A great thickness of Palæozoic extending upwards from the Silurian to the Carboniferous occupies the southwest quarter of the island, where the rocks rise abruptly to a tableland with an elevation of nearly 3,000 feet. The cliffs of the southern coast are indented by many long narrow fiords. Along the western side of the island is a wide margin of softer Mesozoic rocks which form low plains extending from the seashore several miles inland to the base of the high cliffs of older rocks. These plains are covered with arctic vegetation. Musk-oxen, barren-ground caribou and arctic hares are found there in large numbers, along with geese and other aquatic birds.

North Devon island lies to the south of Ellesmere, being separated from it by Jones sound; Lancaster sound bounds it on the south. The island, in shape, somewhat resembles a swimming bird with the head to the northwest and the body east and west. The body is about 220 miles long and averages seventy-five miles across. Grinnell peninsula forms the head, the neck being very irregular, and nearly pierced through by several long bays; the length of head and neck is a hundred miles. The eastern third of the island is composed of crystalline rocks, and rises to an irregular ice-clad tableland some 3,000 feet in altitude. The rise to the interior is somewhat abrupt, and the landscape, seen from the sea, shows an interior ice-cap in the distance, with bare rocky hills rising irregularly above the slopes of the glaciers flowing down the valleys to the sea. The western part of the island is formed of limestone, and is a flat tableland cut by deep narrow fiords that extend inland many miles from the coast, and are continued beyond the salt water as the valleys of small rivers. The general elevation of the tableland in the eastern part is nearly 2,000 feet, but this decreases in the westward, so that on the west side the cliffs are below, and in the interior not much above, a thousand feet. The eastern part of this limestone plateau is covered, at least along the coast, by an ice-cap, and a few small glaciers discharge from it directly into the sea. The ice-cap retreats from the fore part of the plateau, and finally disappears before the western shores of the island is reached. There is lower land along the west side of the island, where there is a good growth of arctic plants on which large numbers of musk-oxen feed, together with some barren-ground caribou and arctic hares. The Eskimos from northern parts of Baffin island often cross Lancaster sound to hunt these animals on the western side of North Devon. Walrus and white bears are also plentiful amongst the ice of Wellington channel which separates North Devon from Cornwallis island on the west. Sverdrup found the remains of Eskimo encampments everywhere along the west side of Ellesmere, and speculated as to where the people who made them came from, and also how the Eskimos reached Greenland. The knowledge that the Baffin natives cross to North Devon, and that some of them have joined the arctic highlanders of Smith sound, disposes of these speculations. Their road is across Prince Regent inlet from Baffin to North Somerset, thence across Lancaster sound to the western part of North Devon. The west side of that island is followed north to the narrows of the western part of Jones sound, and a crossing then made to the western side of Ellesmere, where game is plentiful. This coast of plenty would be followed northward to Bay fiord, where the natural pass across Ellesmere would lead to the fiords of the east side of the island a short distance to the north of Cape Sabine, a place frequently visited by the north Greenland natives.

The Parry islands—Cornwallis, Bathurst, Melville, Eglinton and Prince Patrick—all lie immediately north of the western extension of Lancaster sound—known in parts as Barrow strait, Melville sound and McClure strait. These islands were first discovered by Parry in 1819, but it was the diligent search parties for Franklin that minutely investigated their shores, making them the best known of all the Arctic islands. With the exception of the southern part of Cornwallis, which is formed from Silurian limestone, these islands are composed of softer bedded rocks of the Devonian and Carboniferous. They possess the same physical characteristics, and a general description answers for all. The shore-lines are very broken, being deeply cut by long irregular shaped bays. The land rises in cliffs from 400 feet to 700 feet high, to a plateau broken by many cross ravines, which render travel in the interior difficult. The general level of the interior is under 1,000 feet, and only rarely does it rise above that altitude. In many places coal has been found outcropping in the face of the cliffs of all the islands west of Cornwallis. The practical impossibility of reaching these coal fields precludes them from being counted among the economic resources of Canada.

The Sverdrup islands include Axel Heiberg, Amund Ringes, Ellef Ringes, King Christian and North Cornwall. With the exception of the last named, these islands were discovered by the Norwegian expedition on the _Fram_ in 1899-1902. They form a group lying to the west of Ellesmere and to the north of the Parry islands. The largest, Axel Heiberg, lies close to the west side of Ellesmere, and has the same physical characters as those of the western side of the great island; these are high lands in the interior, composed of bedded rocks, and eruptives with low, wide foreshore, where game is plentiful.

The other islands of the group, being formed of the softer rocks of the Mesozoic, are lower in general elevation, and are characterized by wide stretches of low land between the sea and the crumbling cliffs, which rise to the uneven interior plateau, that rarely exceeds 700 feet in elevation.