776 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1895. 



value. It is usually blackened, split, and so fragile as to break readily 

 iu pieces. It has also been found on tbe shores of Kotzebue Sound and 

 the Arctic coast." ^ 



Captain William Edward Parry,^ during his second voyage for the 

 discovery of a northwest passage, found the walrus in tolerable abun- 

 dance in latitude 08° 22' 21" north, and longitude (by chronometer) 

 81° 56' 55" west, which places the locality on the east coast of Mel- 

 ville Peninsula. He remarks : 



In the course of this day the walruses became more and more numerous every 

 hour, lying in large herds upon the loose pieces of drift ice; and it having fallen 

 calm at 1 p. m., we dispatched our boats to endeavor to kill some for the sake of 

 the oil which they afford. On approaching the ice, our peojile found them huddled 

 close to, and even lying upon, one another, in separate droves of from twelve to 

 thirty, the whole number near the boats being perhaps about two hundred. Most 

 of them waited quietly to be fired at, and even after one or two discharges did not 

 seem to be greatly disturbed, but allowed the people to land on the ice near them, 

 and, when approached, showed an evident disposition to give battle. After they had 

 got into the water, three were struck w^ith harpoons and killed from the boats. 

 When first wounded, they became quite furious, and one which had been struck 

 from Captain Lyon's boat made a resolute attack upon her and injured several of 

 the planks with its enormous tusks. 



The author above cited mentions, furthermore, the occurrence of 

 reindeer and musk ox, both species of animals furnished with horns 

 that might readily furnish excellent materials upon which to inscribe 

 pictorial representations of exjdoits or events. Great abundance of 

 the former are killed in the summer time, "partly by driving them 

 from islands or narrow necks of land into the sea, and then spearing 

 them from their canoes, and partly by shooting them from behind 

 heaps of stones raised for the purpose of watching them, and imitating 

 their peculiar bellow or grunt. Among the various artifices Avhich they 

 employ for this purpose, one of the most ingenious consists in two men 

 walking directly from the deer they wish to kill, when the animal 

 almost always follows them. As soon as they arrive at a large stone, 

 one of the men hides behind it with his bow, while the other, continuing 

 to walk on, soon leads the deer within range of his companion's arrows. 

 They are also very careful to keep to leeward of the deer, and will 

 scarcely go out after them at all when the weather is calm.'" 



HORN. 



Quite a number of specimens of Eskimo workmanship, upon wbicli 

 both simple forms of ornamentation and pictographic records occur, 

 consist of pieces of reindeer horn, obtained from the Barren-ground 

 caribou or reindeer, shaped into the form desired for the purpose. In 

 plate 12 is reproduced a museum group of Woodland caribou {Rangifer 



' "Alaska and its Resources." Boston, 1870, p. 479. 



-The Journal of a second voyage for the discovery of a ngrthwest passage from 

 the Atlantic to the Pacific. London, 1824, p. 220. 

 3 Idem, pp. 420, 421. 



