XLII ANNUAL REPORT OF THE DIRECTOR 



It has been the practice to note, hi connection with the name 

 of each Indian photographed, his age, status in the tribe, and 

 such biographic- information as could be obtained. 



ACCOMPANYING PAPERS 



ETHNOLOGICAL RESULTS OF THE POINT BARROW EXPEDITION, 



BY JOHN MURDOCH. 



Mr. John Murdoch was the naturalist and one of the observ 

 ers detailed in 1881 by the Chief Signal Officer of the Army with 

 the International Polar Expedition to Point Barrow, Alaska. 

 That point was established as one of the stations in the work 

 of circumpolar observation proposed by the International Con 

 ference on that subject. In addition to the specific duties of 

 the expedition, which were connected with meteorology, re- 

 I searches were made by all of its members, during the two 

 / years of their stay, on the habits and customs of the Eskimo 

 / of the neighborhood, and full notes taken. The ethnological 

 I material obtained consisted of those notes and of the objects 

 collected. The notes were so voluminous and the objects 

 which required description and illustration were so many 

 that it was impracticable to publish them in the report of the 

 commanding officer of the expedition, Lieut. P. II. Ray, Eighth 

 Infantry, U. S. Army, which was issued in 188;&quot;). In order 

 that the valuable ethnologic results obtained should not be 

 lost, the Chief Signal Officer permitted the continued employ 

 ment of Mr. Murdoch to complete a special report upon them, 

 and the late Secretary of the Smithsonian Institution furnished 

 him important facilities for the work. It was decided to publish 

 the report with full illustrations, as it now appears, in one of 

 the serial volumes of Annual Reports of this Bureau. 



The work of collecting the objects mentioned and of making 

 the ethnological notes was continued for more than two years, 

 and two more years were occupied by Mr. Murdoch in the an 

 alytical study of those objects and notes before the present re 

 port could be completed. In this report Mr. Murdoch has pre 

 sented a simple and exhaustive account of the Eskimo of Alaska 

 with comntendable absence of theory. At the same time he 



