Ап Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 75 
a small group of 12 Eskimo who lived in a tent on Clavering Island 
(74° N.lat.). It is not inconceivable, however, that changes in the 
anima: life of the sea, for instance of the Great Whales from the 
north east coast of Greenland in the first half of the 19th century, 
may also have been concurrent causes for the extinction of the 
Eskimo. | 
The conditions become quite changed in those places where the 
Europeans appear; there European influence may bring about great 
alternations in the Eskimo settlement. In Greenland one has seen 
how the trading and mission stations have attracted the Eskimo. 
The same state of affairs, only with more conscientious intention, 
has been caused by the Moravian Brethren in Labrador. How contact 
with the European culture can destroy almost entire Eskimo tribes was 
seen in early times in South Alaska, and in recent times in North 
Alaska since the American whale hunters have advanced as far as 
Point Barrow and the mouth of Mackenzie River. In Baffin Land, at 
Cumberland Sound, and on the south coast, the whaling stations have 
from remote districts attracted the Baffinlanders. 
Finally, in this place may be intimated a solution of the problem, 
which to SHERARD OSBORN was so strange, viz., that in Lancaster 
Sound almost all the deserted Eskimo settlements lay on the north 
side. This is no doubt connected with the conditions of the ice. If, 
thus, the forming of a settlement is so dependent on the ice that the 
pack-ice renders it impossible while the smooth winter ice is a 
necessary condition, it can be understood that the prevalent north- 
west winds must fill up the southern coasts of the passage with 
pack-ice while there will be more prospect of smooth ice forming on 
the north side. It is this condition, probably, which has caused the 
Eskimo, who are accurate connaisseurs of the conditions of nature, 
not often to have felt tempted to try a more permanent settlement 
on the southern coasts of these waters. 
