CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN ARCTIC OCEAN. Pail 
people of the village had died of famine, as near as we could make out from a very imperfect inter- 
pretation, and that food became so scarce they were obliged to eat dried walrus skins and their 
dogs, haying but one dog left, when happily the capture of a whale afforded timely relief. A 
number of these fur and feather-clad aborigines, having their heads shaved after the manner of 
Zurbaran’s pictures of monks in the middle ages, were clamorous in importuning for whiskey, and 
the chief of the village refused to sell us a few reindeer skins unless we gave him liquor in exchange, 
this too while the poor remaining dog, looking wistfully up into his face, seemed to be a living 
warning not to try as a remedy the hair of the dog that had bitten the village. 
To attribute the late cause of death among these people entirely to intemperance admits of 
some doubt. Itseems impossible for them, owing to lack of means, to have procured enough drink 
to last more than a few days, or at least during the short stay of any trading vessel that may have 
arrived. Then again it is probable that some epidemic influence was the main factor, if we may 
rely upon the statement of a whaling captain who visited the island during the time so many were 
dying. He tells me that the disease was what he calls “ineasles or black tongue.” Admitting the 
prevalence of sickness of this kind among an improyident and shiftless people, starvation must 
follow as an inevitable and necessary result. Similar conditions having prevailed among the 
Asiatic Eskimo of Plover Bay and East Cape, many of whom have died in the last few years, it 
would, perhaps, be nearer the truth to say that the mortality in question was due to the combined 
influences of intemperance, sickness, and starvation. 
EFFECTS OF CLIMATE. 
At Saint Michael’s, almost under the Arctic Circle, I found that pulmonary troubles and the 
constitutional effects of syphilis prevailed among the small population to an alarming extent. Here 
also, as in most every northern place we touched at, the wicked thirst for rum exercised a domi- 
nating influence. The winters are long and cold, with high winds and gales and a great deal of 
snow; the thermometer falls to —45°, aud the winter previously to our coming was so severe that 
owing to the great and long continued cold Eskimo dogs and wild geese are reported to have 
frozen to death. The accompanying meteorological summaries from the records of the Signal Office 
give a more detailed account-of the weather : 
METEOROLOGICAL SUMMARY. 
AMOUNT OF RAIN AND 
BAROMETER. THERMOMETER. WIND. SRN 
er F 
Range. Range. 5 = 
July, 1879, to end of = 
June, 1880. . C . Oy 
: , 2 a |e ¥ 
= < Ss a3) = x) rai 
> By z “| =| 4 
a = rs =) a i=) za 
1879. 
July... 4 68 36 | 32 65 16 0 
August 2 | 62 35 | 27 83 18 0) 
Septemb 1 | 58 19 | 39 64 21] 0 
October .... 1 | 42 13 | 39 25 16 i 
November. 4 36 | —12 | 48 03 11 4 
December.... 0 36 —32) 68 North... 3 a0 07 10 3 
January 30. 037 North 0 9 S 
February 29. 884 
March 29. 992 
June... 
GENERAL REMARKS. 
1879: July.—Cold and damp; rain or fog nearly every day. 
August.—Cold and rainy. 
September.—Winter commenced the last of the month; remarkably early. 
October.—Almost a continuous series of gales all the month. 
November.—Series of gales the last of the month. 
December.—Mild temperatures and gales the last half of month, ending abruptly in severely cold weather. 
Station: Saint Michael's, Alaska. 
1880: January.—Remarkably high barometer the first of month; long continued cold weather with high winds the last. 
February.—A continuous series of gales accompanied by snow all the month. 
March.—Extraordinarily large snow fall during the month; but the accompanying gales, as in February, prevented measurement. 
April.—Very cold; unusually fine weather toward the last of month, but low temperatures still prevailed. 
May.—Winter continued unbroken until the 18th inst., when it became suddenly warm, and the water-fowl began arriving. 
