190 'H. P. Steenssy. 
and the entrance from below is the same. Only as regards the window 
is there a difference of a rather immaterial character, because the Polar 
Eskimo have had to move the window down on the front side of the 
house, just above the house passage; while the original window has been 
retained as a small opening (“the nose of the house’’). 
There is also a congruity in the way that the two forms of houses 
are placed on the ground, inasmuch as both are placed on slightly sloping 
ground, and generally near the top of a low hill, As regards the material, 
the Point Barrow house is constructed of wood, and, which is of no 
small interest, even planks are employed. According to MurRDOcH even 
whales’ bones may enter into the structure, earth being heaped over 
the whole. 
To imagine this Point Barrow house transplanted to regions where 
there is neither wood nor whales’ bones is to imagine the beams replaced 
by a kind of cantilever construction of stones, and then one has the 
pear-shaped house, the form of which is only a result of this forced con- 
. struetion. It is best known from the regions at Smith Sound, But yet, 
as mentioned, approximate forms also occur on the north-east coast of 
Greenland; though only in ruins. Its distribution is still almost un- 
known in the North American Archipelago, although it is probable that 
it is just in the Archipelago with its lack of wood as well as of whales’ 
bones that the Point Barrow house type has first had to change into 
the pear-shaped house. 
We shall now proceed to a further consideration of the Eskimo 
house of a rectangular type. THa.pitzer draws attention to the 
fact that it is found both in Alaska and in Greenland, and he is justified 
in saying that one gets the impression that the house from Point Barrow, 
described by Murpocu, “is not very different from the rectangular house 
we find in South Greenland and Angmagsalik.” 
The principal difference lies in the size, The Point Barrow house 
is small, and for two families at the utmost, while the South Greenland 
house may be for several families. On comparing Hoxm’s figure (fig. 4 
on the plate) of a transverse section of an Angmagsalik house with the 
corresponding one from Point Barrow by Murpocn, one gets an im- 
pression of the affinity in construction; but a comparison of the ground- 
plans shows the difference in size. Elsewhere! I have tried to show 
that the South Greenland common-house must be thought to have — 
come about through a row of houses lying side by side being built into 
one. In other words the idea which has been carried out here is quite 
different from that which underlies the Mackenzie house, which likewise 
can contain a larger number of families (up to two in each niche or six 
families in all). This also shows distinctly that the pear-shaped house is 
not an off-shoot of the Mackenzie house. If such were the case there 
*M. o. G., Vol. 34, pp. 322 sqq. 
