AKTIFICIAL SHELL-DEPOSITS. 259 



in many ways that would leave no trace behind. The mere absence from the 

 lower strata of shell-heaps of anything pointing to the existence of the kayak 

 can scarcely be considered as proof conclusive of its non-existence. My personal 

 observations have led me to believe that the remains of former villages and 

 dwellings found on the Aleutian Islands and the continental coast of Alaska are 

 not of the antiquity ascribed to them. Wherever I had the opportunity to 

 observe such localities at long intervals of time, I was astonished at the rapidity 

 with which nature extinguished the traces of man by a growth of sphagnum and 

 other vegetation, giving to the site of the village abandoned but a few years 

 every appearance of great antiquity. 



" The absence of stone and bone implements of more delicate construction 

 from the lower strata of the shell-heaps can easily be attributed to the same 

 cause that explains the absence of iron implements from the upper layers that 

 must have accumulated within historic times. Such articles were the product of 

 much labor, and consequently too precious to be lost. At every successive 

 removal from one dwelling-place to another all such products of their ingenuity 

 were carefully collected and removed by the ancient Aleuts, just as it is done 

 now with regard to iron by the natives of the present day. 



" In the settlements remote from the trading-centres the people of Innuit 

 stock live to-day as they did probably centuries ago, in a manner not at all 

 inconsistent with the remains found in the lower strata of shell-heaps. Even the 

 presence of stone and bone arrow and spear-heads is no true indication of age, as 

 they are manufactured at tne present day, as I had an opportunity to witness 

 frequently during my travels in remote regions. 



" The time required for the formation of a so-called layer of ' kitchen -refuse ' 

 found under the sites of Aleutian or Innuit dwellings I am also inclined to think 

 less than indicated by Mr. Dall's calculations. Anybody who has watched a 

 healthy Innuit family in the process of making a meal on the luscious echinus or 

 sea-urchin, would naturally imagine that in the course of a month they might 

 pile up a great quantity of spinous debris. Both hands are kept busy conveying 

 the sea-fruit to the capacious mouth ; with a skillful combined action of teeth 

 and tongue the shell is cracked, the rich contents extracted, and the former falls 

 rattling to the ground in a continuous shower of fragments until the meal is con- 

 cluded. A family of three or four adults, and perhaps an equal number of chil- 

 dren, will leave behind them a shell-monument of their voracity a foot or eighteen 

 inches in height after a single meal. In localities in Prince William Sound I 

 had an opportunity to examine the camp-sites of sea-otter hunters on the coast 

 contiguous to their hunting-grounds. Here they live almost exclusively upon 

 echinus, clams, and mussels, which are consumed raw, in order to avoid building 

 fires and making smoke, and thereby driving the sensitive sea-otter from the 

 vicinity. The heaps of refuse created under such circumstances during a single 



