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continued in a direction from west to east, and pointing to
Alaska as the supposed culture home. The facts alleged in
favour of this hypothesis were: 1) the successive completion of
the most valuable invention, the kayak, with its implements
and the art of using the latter, especially the double-bladed
paddle, the great harpoon with the hunting bladder, the
kayak-clothes and the hunters capacity of rising to the surface again,
in the event of being overturned. 2) the gradual change of
several customs, namely the use of lip ornaments ceasing at the
Mackenzie river, the use of masks at festivals continuing unto
Baffin’s land, and the women’s head gear, gradually altered
between Point Barrow and Baffin’s bay, 3) the construction of
buildings and, at the same time, in some degree, the social
organisation and religious customs. The gradual, but, of course,
still only slight change in all these features of the state of
culture, seems to go side by side with the increasing natural
difficulties and the effect of isolation in removing from the
original home. At the same time, the original stock of settlers
in spreading towards the east, may have been augmented by
those other tribes of Eskimo race above alluded to who,
perhaps yielding to the pressure from hostile Indians, and retiring
to the north by way of the Mackenzie, the Coppermine, and
the Great Fish-rivers, may have met and associated with these
immigrants of their own nation who already had reached the
Central Begions beyond Cape Bathurst. This suggestion may
explain several diversities between the east and the west, as
well as the relatively large number of immigrants to Greenland.
Several facts speak in favour of presuming that Alaska
was populated by Eskimo in very remote ages. Narrowly
accumulated ruins, almost like remains of a whole Eskimo
town are said to stretch along the river Yukon somewhat inside
of its mouth. Lieut. Ray in his Report on the Point Barrow
Expedition says: «that the ancestors of those people (present
Eskimo) made it their home for ages is conclusively shown by
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