74 H. P. Srerenspy. 
It is impressed on one in several places in the border districts 
how colonization which is in a permanent state of progression and 
retrogression, together with this settlement of hunting groups consisting 
of a few families, plays an inferior réle, and may even be overlookedy 
in this extensive region with its violent nature. As an example, shall 
be mentioned Banks Island, on the east side of which, at Prince of 
Wales Strait, Mc. CLure and Coxtrnson found such a quantity of 
ruined dwellings that they felt tempted to believe that the district 
was still visited, had not the ruins been covered with moss, the 
drift-wood been lying untouched on the beach, and Me. Cuure’s cairns 
and depéts of provisions been found by Coxrinson to be undisturbed. 
The Englishmen had some reason in believing in_a more permanent 
settlement here, as they came across a small ¢ribe/of Eskimo at Prince 
Albert Sound which was not far distant. The tribe, of which the 
most important centres of refuge are Prince Albert Sound and Minto 
Inlet, has again been heard of quite lately, in that it was rediscovered 
in the spring of 1910 by Sreransson, who thinks that here he has 
found a tribe with numerous fair individuals, the so called ‘blond 
Eskimos.’”” The divers problems which the observation of this local 
phenomenon calls into existence are not to be dealt with here, as they 
lie outside our immediate task. Here will only be stated, however, \ 
that SrEFANsson will have it that Banks Island, at Mc. Ciure’s time, 
really was inhabited by an Eskimo tribe which had its abode at 
Prince of Wales Strait, and that this tribe found Me. Crure’s ship 
“Investigator” a couple of years after it had been deserted in Mercy 
Bay on the north coast of the island; thereby, together with the 
Eskimo at Prince Albert Sound, this tribe attained certain significance 
within the Coronation Gulf domain, because its members became 
distributors of iron, timber and other goods from the ship. Later 
on, or presumably towards 1890, this tribe in Banks Island is said 
to have become extinct on account of the occurrence of various’ kinds 
of famine. 
The view, that the dying out of the Eskimo in certain districts 
should be connected with a deterioration in the climatic conditions 
or the like, has often been expressed. 
There can be no doubt that this is generally wrong. The reason ™ 
for Eskimo groups, which are not in contact with Europeans, be- 
coming decimated at some periods, while at others they are perhaps 
increasing, must be sought for exclusively within the real setting for 
Eskimo life, and amongst the effects which this exercises on the 
surrounding conditions of nature. Among these ‘effects must be 
emphasized, as mentioned, the depredatory hunting of musk ox. 
Within the range of the musk ox and in ‘the course of the 19th 
century, Eskimo, now extinct, lived on the north east coast of 
* Greenland, where CLavertne and Sastne in August 1823 came across 
