XIV.] THE ESKIMO AT PORT CLARENCE. .077 



the American side, but forbidden in such a way that tlie hiw 

 is obeyed. 



During our stay an\(jng the Chukches my supply of articles 

 for barter was very limited ; for up to the hour of departure 

 uncertainty pi'evailed as to the time at which we would get 

 free, and I was therefore compelled to be sparing of tlie stores. 

 I often found it difficult on that accovmt to induce a Chukch to 

 part with things which I wished to acquire. Here on the 

 contrary I was a rich man, thanks to the large surplus that 

 Avas over from our abundant winter equipment, which of 

 course in warm regions would liave been of no use to us. I 

 turned my riches to account by making visits like a pedlar in the 

 tent villages with sacks full of felt hats, thick clothes, stockir'gs, 

 ammunition, &c., for which goods I obtained a beautiful and 

 choice collection of ethnographical articles. Among these may 

 be mentioned beautiful bone etchings and carvings, and several 

 arrow-points and other tools of a species of nephrite,^ which is 

 so puzzlingly like the well-known nephrite from High Asia, that 

 I am disposed to believe that it actually comes originally ihnn 

 that locality. In such a case the occurrence of nephrite at 

 Behring's Straits is important, because it cannot be explained in 

 any other way than either by supposing that the tribes living 

 here have carried the mineral with them from their original 

 home in High Asia, or that during the Stone Age of High Asia 

 a like extended commercial intercommunication took place 

 between the wild races as now exists, or at least some decades 

 ago existed, along the north parts of Asia and America. 



^ Nephrite is a light green, sometimes grass-green, very hard and compact 

 species of ampliibolite, which occurs in High Asia, Mexico, and New Zealand. 

 At all these places it has been employed for stone implements, vases, 

 pipes, &c. The Chinese put an immensely high value upon it, and the 

 wish to procure nephrite is said often to have determined their politics, 

 to have caused wars, and im])ressed its stamp on treaties of yjeace con- 

 cluded between millions. I also consider it probable that the precious 

 Vasa Murrliina, which was brought to Rome after the campaign against 

 Mithridates, and has given rise to so nmch discussion, was nephrite. 

 Neplirite was also perhaps the first of all stones to be used ornamentally. 

 For we find axes and chisels of this material among the people of the 

 Stone Age both in Europe (where no locality is known where unworked 

 nephrite is found) and in Asia, America, and New Zealand. In Asia 

 implements of neplirite are found both on the Chukch Peninsula and in old 

 graves from the Stone Age in the southern part of the country. They 

 have been discovered at Telma, sixty verstsfrom Irkutsk, by Mr, J. N. 

 Wilkoffski, conservator of the East Siberian Geographical Society. In 

 scientific mineralogy nephrite is first mentioned under the name of Kascho- 

 lonff {i.e. a species of stone from the river Kasch). It has heen hrouirht 

 home under this name by Renat, a prisoner-of-war from Charles XII.'s 

 army, from High Asia, and was given by him to Swedish mineralogists, 

 who described it very correctly, though kascholong has since been 

 erroneously considered a species of quartz. 



P P 



