11 



resting places and on one side the entrance, whereas in Green- 

 land the resting places or family benches are all arranged on 

 one side, for which reason the houses have a more or less 

 elongated form, the length corresponding to the number of the 

 inhabitants. Owing to the square form the size of the Alaska 

 houses varies within narrower limits, the number of their in- 

 habitants is also more limited than in Greenland. Only some 

 tribes in the Interior, described by Glasunow as a mixed race, 

 seem to have larger houses, and so had the Aleutians in former 

 times. But in Alaska on the other hand, in order to make up 

 for the lack of sufficient room for assemblies in the houses 

 there are larger public buildings, one or two in each place. 

 They are called : kagse, plur. kagsit, also kagge, kashim , kassigit, 

 and as it seems their use continues from Alaska towards the 

 East at a rate corresponding to the narrowness of the dwelling 

 houses. 



In Southern Alaska the houses resemble those of the In- 

 dians by having a hearth in the middle of the floor with a 

 smokehole in the roof over it. The inner room; as already 

 mentioned, is furnished on three sides with alcoves, affording 

 separate open lodges or sleeping rooms, while the fourth af- 

 fords the entrance. This construction gives the houses a some- 

 what cruciform appearance. Moreover they are comparatively 

 spacious and built mostly of wood covered with earth only on 

 the outside. Northward on the coast of Bering Strait, WHERE 

 WOOD BECOMES SCARCER the added alcoves disappear; the size 

 of the inner room consequently diminishes. The resting places 

 more especially are reduced to the utmost narrowness; the 

 hearth for want of fuel is displaced in favour of the blubber 

 lamps; and the middle of the room instead occupied by the 

 women, serving them as their working place. 



Near the Mackenzie R. we again meet with the cruciform 

 construction, but beyond this border .it wholly disappears. By 

 degrees as wood becomes scarcer we also see SNOW TRIED AS A 



