46 H. P. STEENSBY. 14 
/ tor connection between the groups or tribes. This link extends from 
? Baffin Land to the Melville Peninsula, from Rae Isthmus to the 
/ Boothia Isthmus, and from Simpson Strait to Corpnation Gulf. A 
| conflux exactly corresponding and at least as well developed took 
place among the West Eskimo. Not only was there a lively connec- 
tion across Bering Strait, but from here the trading route went 
southwards to Norton Sound, and also northwards along coasts and 
rivers to the Arctic Ocean, and further towards the east to the 
Mackenzie Eskimo. When, from the south, the English travellers 
came to these, they found them in possession of articles of Russian 
manufacture, which the Eskimo said they had obtained along the 
trading route mentioned above. On the other hand, no such commo- 
dities were found at Coronation Gulf; but this only serves to show 
that the Eskimo here lived more out of the beaten track, just as it 
reminds us that their trading connection ultimately took the direction 
of Hudson Bay. 
For practical reasons it is usual to divide — the Eskimo into 
Greenlanders, Labradors, Central Eskimo (by which is understood the * 
East Eskimo in the Arctic Archipelago and on the coast of the~ 
adjacent mainland), Mackenzie Eskimo,the-Eskimo_ in Alaska and in 
Asia, and, lastly, Aleuts._ 
This division is, however, not _of great importance as regards 
their culture, historically. On the other hand, it is of importance 
in anthropogeographical respects in order to distinguish between Arctic 
and Subarctic, as the Eskimo inhabit both distinctly Arctic_regions 
and tracts of coast with a_cold-temperate coast climate. The Green- 
landers south of Holsteinsborg and the inhabitants of Alaska south 
of the Yukon Delta are reckoned as being distinctly Subaretic. The 
related conditions in climate and the nature of the ocean in and 
near South Greenland and South Alaska effect a predominance of 
certain fixed features in the conditions of culture, so that it is fully 
justifiable to talk of a Subarctic form of Eskimo culture in contra- 
distinction to the Arctic form in the more decidedly Arctic regions. 
The total number of individuals of the whole tribe was estimated 
by Rink to amount in 1887 to 31—32,000 souls. Of this number, 
one third or about 10,000 fell to Greenland, about 4,000 to the 
Archipelago, some 2,000 to Labrador, and he assigned a similar 
number to Mackenzie and to Asia, and, lastly, fully 11,000 to Alaska. 
Of these numbers, that given for Alaska is evidently wrong. In 1880 
the U.S. A. instituted a thorough census, with the result that there 
were 17,617 Eskimo in Alaska besides 2,143 Aleuts. In further 
conformity with this, Kurr Hasserr in 1891 estimated the total 
number of Eskimo at about 40,000; a number which must be 
assumed still to have approximate validity. 
A complete description of the history of the discovery of the 
