﻿NO. 7 



SMITHSONIAN EXPLORATIONS, I926 



147 



island. Beneath these boulders are many large crevices in which nest 

 thousands of the little auks. One hears the birds constantly chattering 

 deep beneath one's feet, but never sees them. The crevices are deep 

 and spacious, and into them have fallen beyond redemption many of 

 the skulls and bones of the people buried once among the rocks above. 

 Only here and there a bone or a skull that escaped such fate remained 

 to be collected. 



As to the village on the little Diomede, it is a poor little hamlet 

 of only five houses, and could never have been much larger. But it is 

 built upon something that preceded it and the ruins, the tumbled 



Fig. 149. — Portion of Native Uurial Grounds from uluch specimens of 

 skeletons and crania were collected for Smithsonian Institution. Locatio)i: 

 Northern Talus slope of Cape Mountain about i mile from Village of Wales. 

 (Photograph by Clark M. Garber.) 



buildings of older times, have served for a foundation of the newer 

 dwellings. Dr. Jennes of the Ottawa Museum came out with us from 

 Cape Prince of Wales to do some excavation on the island. 



The next stopping place after a brief visit to Wales, was the site 

 of two old native settlements with a living village between them, called 

 Shismarefif, located near the middle of the northern coast of the 

 Seward Peninsula. Along this part of the coast are several other old 

 dead villages, some of thein particularly promising for exploration 

 Of the two at ShismareiT itself, the more important was unfortunately 

 appropriated recently for a fox farm, the burial grounds were razed, 

 the skeletal remains mostly dumped into holes, the surface of the old 

 igloos levelled and cages for the foxes erected upon the flats thus made. 



