An Anthropogeographical Study of the Origin of the Eskimo Culture. 81 
According to Boas's investigations there can hardly be any doubt as 
regards the route by which the Baffinlanders have migrated into their present 
coastal districts. From the Melville peninsula they have followed the trans- 
verse hollows of the country, which as a rule are continued as deeper indenta- 
tions to the east coast. From here one stream has gone northwards across 
North Devon to Smith Sound, while another has gone from the south 
coast of Baffin Land across the bridge formed by the islands in the west 
end of. Hudson Strait to Labrador. The features given by Boas of the 
economic culture of the Baffinlanders, and especially of their annual economic 
cycle, show distinctly that their original economic culture has been of an 
Arctie character". 
Labrador. 
The peninsula of Labrador is a mountainous country which consists of 
old eruptive rocks, and towards its north-eastern coast rises to considerable 
heights. From an anthropogeographical point of view it is divided into 
two different parts, (1) the interior occupied by numerous lakes, bare rocks, 
and woods, and (2) the lofty, indented, rocky coasts of the north-east and 
north-west sides, which, like the east coast of Baffin Land have a fringe of 
skerries. | 
Corresponding to this separation is the division of the population into 
Indians and Eskimo, the former inhabiting the whole of the interior of the 
peninsula, and the latter the coasts inclosed by the skerries. What is especially 
peculiar to the sea here is the enormous tidal movement; the difference 
between low-tide and high-tide having been registered to be on an average 
12 metres, capable at times of rising to 20 metres. In consequence the current 
through Hudson Strait is very strong and only the skerry-protected inclosure 
is covered with a level layer of ice during winter, while the unconfined sea 
is open and filled with drifting floes. TURNER?, who mentions the dangerous 
navigation along the north coast of Labrador says: “In August and Sep- 
tember the strait is comparatively free from large floes, but after this period 
the seas, fjords and other protected waters may freeze over in a single night.” 
But, as a rule, the protected waters, to which not even the floes have direct 
admittance, are free from ice from May till sometime before December. In 
spite of the comparatively low latitude, the flora of the cliffs and the marine 
fauna very nearly approximate purely Arctic forms. The seals, which were 
formerly extremely abundant, have now diminished greatly in numbers, in 
consequence of the persecution inflicted on them by the seal-clubbers; but 
the Ringed Seal and the Greenland Seal still occur in great numbers. The 
walrus is said previously to have lived far within the Gulf of St. Lawrence, 
where the last of them is said to have been exterminated on Magdalene 
Island by English fishermen ®. 
1 Boas, I and II. 
ZTURNER, lp. 172. 
=A; oe PACKARD, 1, р. 70. 
тли. 6 
