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A peculiar thing was, that some of tlie oldest ruins were 

 considerably larger than the houses now used, and had a more 

 square-shaped ground-plan. How far these large houses belong 

 to a definite period in the earlier history of the Polar Eskimos, 

 or whether they have perhaps been built by quite a different 

 tribe of Eskimos, which has lived there previous to the present 

 tribe, it is difficult to determine. I thought of something 

 intermediate, that they were perhaps meeting-houses (kashims) 

 of a similar character to those met with among the Central 

 Eskimos on the mainland and among the Western Eskimos, 

 and the Polar Eskimos are certainly not unacquainted with the 

 custom , for those of a certain age to meet together in a 

 common house. Thus, we sometimes find at their settlements 

 a special meeting-house for the young people. For this pur- 

 pose, however, one of the ordinary winter-houses is used, a 

 special house* of a larger type is not built. This would also 

 be practically impossible, as the Polar Eskimos, with their 

 present materials of nothing but stones and grass-turf and 

 with their modest technical appliances, have probably reached 

 the approximate limit for the size of their houses. On the 

 other hand, there is no doubt, that if the materials permitted 

 it, they would sometimes built larger houses than they now do. 



These considerations lead us therefore on to a difîerent 

 line with regard to the question of the large ruins. On Baffin 

 Land the natives at Ponds Inlet build fairly large houses, in 

 which the roof is not a stone-arch, but is formed from wood 

 or from whale-ribs, which those taking part in the Scottish 

 whale-fishing still have the opportunity to obtain. Some few 

 centuries ago, when the large whales occurred in great num- 

 bers, it must have been easy for the Polar Eskimos to procure 

 such bones for building materials, from the whales that were 

 stranded or driven on land, and thus to make their houses 

 somewhat larger than they can build them now. For the rest, 

 well-preserved ruins of such houses with cross-beams of whale- 



