128 H. P. STEENSBY. 
be stored away, and that the sea ice, in a lesser degree, is adaptable for Maupok 
hunting. Perirôr who, from predilection, describes the Eskimo as fat, seden- 
tary, good for nothing fellows in contrast to the lean, hardened Indian, says 
that, compared with what he has otherwise seen of the dwellings of “savages,” 
the Eskimo winter house is the best which can be procured in 69° N. lat. In 
spite of his ill-will, perhaps no other author gives a better idea than does Ретттбт 
of the comparative richness and height of the Eskimo hunting culture. 
Through travellers meeting the Mackenzie Eskimo one gets the impression 
that they originally were a comparatively numerous tribe, and one gets the 
same impression from their numerously attended visits to the trading stations. 
Thus Petirér found that Fort Macpherson was on June 11, 1877, visited by 
about 500 Eskimo, who had arrived in 24 umiaks, and only by 150—200 Kutchin 
Indians. PETITÔT estimated the total number at 2000. On the basis of RICHARD- 
son’s statement, that in 1848 he saw about 200 kayak men coming out from a 
settlement where they had been carrying on White Whale hunting, STEFANSSON 
assumes that the number must then have been 2000 at the very least. Mean- 
while, under the influence of civilization through whale hunting and trade, this 
number has been reduced to such an extent that at the census which was taken 
by the Canadian Mounted Police in 1911, only 40 thorough-bred descendants 
of the old Mackenzie Eskimo were found, to which could be added only 100 
who were immigrants from other tribes or half-breeds. 
The Point Barrow Eskimo’. 
After ELson in 1826 had, on a boating trip along the coast from Icy Саре 
northwards, discovered Point Barrow this was for a long time considered un- 
circumnavigable on account of the ice, and when in 1850 it was passed by the 
“Investigator” the crew drew breath more freely, believing that they were already 
on their way home to England through the North-west Passage. Since that 
time numerous ships have passed Point Barrow, and the north-western and 
northern coasts of Alaska are now well-known. These, as regards their struc- 
ture and the conditions of the ice, offer as far south as the southern coast of 
Kotzebue Sound quite homogeneous conditions for Eskimo settlements, for 
which reason these stretches of coast are described collectively, taking the group 
at Point Barrow as a type. 
The country, along the whole of its coast, is a rather low tundra with nume- 
rous pools and small streams, while large water-courses and delta-formations 
are totally wanting. The coast itself, with the exception of such parts as Cape 
Lisburne and its environments, is low and sandy and has lagoons usually ac- 
companied by bars of sand, which run parallel with the coast, and at some dis- 
tance from it, and are here and there elevated into low islands. The highly sandy 
character of the coast is also evidenced by many of its heads being sandy pro- 
montories. This is the case, for instance, with Point Barrow, Point Belcher, 
1 Authors specially consulted are: Мовросн, I and then ALLDRICH; BEECHEY; 
NELSON: PETROFF; Ray; Steransson. Cf. STEENSBY, I, pp. 112—116. 
