234 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



pological Society in regard to certain abandoned habitations 

 of the Esquimaux in East Greenland. He remarked that at 

 each of seven different points they found three stone houses, 

 some of them certainly over one hundred years of age. These 

 were winter huts, the remnants of their summer abodes being 

 indicated by stone rings. In many places there were indi- 

 cations of stone graves, and from the skeletons found in them 

 tolerably well-preserved crania were obtained, agreeing with 

 the Eastern Esquimau type as described by Virchow, and 

 exhibiting the carnivorous habit in the highest degree. Re- 

 mains of wood carving, tolerably well executed, occurred 

 with the dead bodies, and in the heap were found bone knife- 

 handles, harpoons of bone, arrow-tips, and even knife-shaped 

 pieces of iron, probably obtained from the English expedi- 

 tion of 1823. Correspondenz-Blatt der Deutschen Gesellschaft. 

 fur Anthropologic, etc., 1871, 35. 



RINK OX THE ESQUIMAUX. 



At a meeting of the Anthropological Institute, a paper by 

 Dr. Rink " On the Descent of the Esquimaux" was presented 

 to the society. In this the author attempts to show from 

 traditional and historical evidence that this race is thorough- 

 ly American, and not Asiatic in its origin, as some ethnolo- 

 gists have maintained. 15 A, April 27, 1872, 530. 



RELATION OF INDIANS TO GAME IN THE NORTH. 



Dr. Rae responds, in Nature, to a communication in that 

 same journal referring to the death of 3000 Indians from 

 smallpox in the Saskatchewan district during the past year. 

 The most valuable portion of the traffic of the Hudson Bay 

 Company with the Indians in that region is in the skins of 

 the marten, or Hudson Bay sable, and the doctor calls atten- 

 tion to a well-known relation between martens, rabbits, and 

 Indians. The rabbits of the country, Lepus campestris of 

 Bach man, have varying periods of abundance, increasing for 

 a number of years, and then becoming suddenly attacked by 

 an epidemic which carries them off in immense numbers. 



When most numerous they are preyed upon by the mar- 

 tens, which collect about the haunts of the rabbits in great 

 abundance, and the Indians flock to the same region; and 

 while finding ample sustenance from the rabbits, set their 



