GRAPHIC ART OF THE ESKIMOS. 753 



along the north and east coast of Greenland, two families being met 

 with by Captain Clavering in 1823, north of 74^ 30'. Captain Holm 

 recently found them on the southeast coast between Goo and Gfio north 

 latitude. These are said to profess ignorance of any natives north 

 of them. On the west coast of Greeidand they extend to about 74° 

 north latitude. General Greely found indications of permanent settle- 

 ments in Grinnell Land, near Fort Conger, at 81° 44' north latitude, 

 Mr. Henry G. Bryant, in his "Notes on the most northern Eskimos,"^ 

 says: 



As is well known, tlie most northern Eskimos were first visited by Sir John Ross 

 in 1818, and he first applied to them the term "Arctic Highlanders." As the appro- 

 priateness of this appellation seems quite (luestiouable as applied to a tribe living 

 wholly on the seacoast, I have preferred to use the term "most northern Eskimos," 

 as being more descriptive and appropriate in its character. This tril)e inhabits that 

 rugged strip of indented coast in northwest Greenland wliich extends for about 

 550 miles from Cape York to a point somewhat south of the southern edge of the 

 Humboldt glacier. It is a fact well known that the impassible ice walls which occur 

 at both of these points have thus far served as effectual barriers to any extended 

 migrations of this tribe. It is owing to this enforced isolation that at this late day 

 we find here the most typical of the Eskimo family groups — a primitive tril)e who 

 are but just emerging from the Stone Age, whose members still dress in skins, eat 

 raw flesh, and pursue their game with the same sort of rude weapons that their 

 forefathers used in prehistoric times. 



Doctor Kane, in 1855, noted this tribe as numbering 140, while 

 Mr. Bryant remarks that Lieutenant Peary places the census at fully 

 250. 



On the Labrador Coast the Eskimo extend southward to Hamilton 

 Inlet at about 55^=^ 30', north latitude, though it is not so long since 

 they were located at the Straits of Belle Isle. 



On the east coast of Hudson Bay these natives reach southward to 

 James Bay; while northward it is on Ellsmere Land and around Jones 

 Sound that Doctors Boas and Bessels place the northernmost groups 

 of the middle Eskimo. Several of the northern Arctic islands present 

 evidence of former occupancy, but for some unknown cause the natives 

 migrated thence. The western part of the central region of the con- 

 tinent seems unoccupied, and from the Mackenzie westward the coast 

 seems to have no permanent villages between Ilerschel Island and 

 Point Barrow. This strip of country is no doubt hunted over in sum- 

 mer, as the natives of the latter locality do not penetrate far into the 

 interh)r for game. 



The Alaskan Coast from Point Barrow to the Copper Eiver on the 

 south is practically occupied by Eskimo of various villages or bands, 

 as will hereafter be more fully described. 



The Aleutian Islands are occupied to a certain extent by a branch 

 of the same linguistic family, though the dialects are unintelligible 

 to the Eskimo proper. Their distribution has been very materially 



' Reprinted from Report of the Sixth International Geographical Congress, held 

 at London, 18!15. p. 3. 



NAT MUS 95 48 



