peopled the Aleutian islands, whereas people of the principal 

 race later on settled at the river-mouths, spreading northward 

 along Bering Strait and hiveing off some colonies to the op- 

 posite shore proceeded around Point Barrow to the east, the 

 Mackenzie river, over the Central Regions or Arctic Archipelago, 

 and finally to Labrador and Greenland. This dispersion may 

 have taken thousands of years; they can only have proceeded 

 in small bands, very much as still they are used to move about 

 during certain seasons. Their only way of procuring subsist- 

 ence in the vast deserts they passed over, excluded the possi- 

 bility of national migrations on a larger scale. While in this 

 way they continued to discover new countries, some families 

 were induced to go farther, others remained and finally gave 

 rise to the present scattered settlements. But in proposing 

 this hypothesis I consider it a matter of course that Alaska as 

 the original home of the Eskimo is not to be taken in the 

 strictest sense, absolutely excluding adjacent parts of the con- 

 tinent towards the east. Tribes of the same race may have 

 come down the Mackenzie or even more easterly rivers, but 

 amalgamated with the principal stock , learning their inventions 

 and adopting their mode of life. But as to the other theory, 

 that the Eskimo should have migrated from Asia via Bering 

 Strait and found the Indian territory already occupied by the 

 same nations as now, this objection must be separately taken 

 into consideration in connection with the facts bearing in favour 

 of the former. 



