﻿354 ESKIMOS. 



post of tlie Hudson's Bay Company established on 

 the western Rat River. 



Articles of Russian manufacture, procured by 

 barter coastwise, were traced by us in an easterly 

 direction no further than Point Atkinson. Pre- 

 vious to the recent establishment of the Russian 

 Fur Company's posts in the vicinity of Beering's 

 Straits, the objects exchanged at Barter Island, on 

 the 144th meridian, were brought on the Asiatic 

 side from the fair of Ostrownoie near the Kolyma, 

 by the Tchuktche, who passed them in the first 

 instance to the Eskimos of Beering's Straits, by 

 whom they were bartered at the island in question, 

 for furs brought thither by the Eskimos of the 

 estuary of the Mackenzie. In like manner various 

 wares of English make found their way, through 

 the Kutchin and Mackenzie River Eskimos, coast- 

 wise to the Russian establishments on the Pacific. 



From the predilection for commercial pursuits 

 shown by the Eskimos, Yon Baer compares them 

 to the Phoenicians, and, referring back to very early 

 times, finds traces of their voyages along the eastern 

 coasts of America, as far south as the present state 

 of Massachusetts. There the Scandinavian dis- 

 coverers of Vinland (Rhode Island) had many 

 skirmishes with the Skrellings {Skr ailing eim)^ whose 

 identity with the Eskimos Von Baer considers as 

 established by the recorded descriptions of their 



