258 THE ESKIMO ABOUT BERING STRAIT [eth.ann 18 



jawbone of a whale, the upper end of which was slightly curved inward 

 to meet the ribs crossed on the top. The jawbone, held in place by 

 lashings and heavy stones, was thus made to sustain the weight of the 

 structure. Over this framework tanned walrus hides were laid and 

 secured by lashings and heavy stones or whale vertebra; attached to the 

 ends of cords. The front part of the room was used for storing various 

 articles of food and property, and the rear part was supplied with pologs, 

 or small rooms, made by sewing reindeer skins into the form of a cov- 

 ered square or rectangular box without a bottom, about 7 or 8 by 10 or 

 12 feet square and about 4 feet high, which were held in place by raw- 

 hide ropes extending from each upper corner and the middle of the 

 sides to the framework of the roof. In this way very close, warm rooms 

 were made inside the house, in which, on a small raised i^latform of 

 planks or beaten earth, the beds were placed. Each family had its own 

 polog. Wood seemed to be very scarce among these people. The 

 illustration shows the situation of the village and the position of the 

 houses. The elevated platform on the right, for sleds and boats, is 

 made of whales' jawbones (figure 85). 



Scattered along the hillside among the occui)ied houses were the 

 remains of many ruined houses, which were similar in character to the 

 dwellings seen on the Diomede islands — partly underground, with 

 external stone walls — and a very large number of pits showed the sites 

 of still older houses. It was evident that in earlier times these people 

 had used underground houses exclusively, but more recently had 

 abandoned them and built their dwellings in the manner described. 



At Plover bay, on the same coast, the village consisted mainly 

 of walrus-hide huts similar to those at East cape, except that they 

 had no stone walls about the bases, and the frames were composed of 

 driftwood instead of whale ribs 5 but the interior arrangement of deer- 

 skin pologs w^as the same. The illustration (plate lxxxiii a), from a 

 photograph, will give an idea of the exterior of these houses. 



A few small, half underground houses of driftwood and whalebones 

 covered with earth in the regular Eskimo style, were found here. On 

 the northern side of the mouth of the bay a zigzag path leads high up 

 on the bluft's to a rock-walled shelter used as a lookout to watch for 

 whales or for vessels at sea. 



This village is not very populous, and through the introduction of 

 whisky and of various diseases by the whalers, who call here every 

 season, the Eskimo at this point are in a fair way to become extinct. 

 The accompanying illustration (plate lxxxiv) represents two women 

 from this locality. 



St Lawrence island had several large and populous villages previous 

 to the year ] 879. During the winter of 1879-'80 a famine, accompanied 

 by disease, caused the death of at least two-thirds of the entire popu- 

 lation of the island, and several villages were completely depopulated. 



During the summer of 1881 I visited these villages on the revenue 



