SETTLEMENT AT POINT BARROW. 237 



The number of inhabitants within the first-named boundaries 

 does not, from all we can learn, exceed 2500 souls, and is probably 

 little more than 2000, all of whom bave the same characteristics of 

 form, feature, language, and dress, and follow, with little variation, 

 according to the locality, whether on the coast or in the interior, 

 the same habits and pursuits. The remarks which follow, therefore, 

 though more particularly referring to the people of Point Barrow, 

 will be equally applicable to them all. 



Point Barrow is the northern extreme of this part of the American 

 continent, consisting of a low spit of sand and gravel projecting to 

 the north-east. Its length is about four miles, and it is little more 

 than a quarter of a mile in average breadth, but expands consider- 

 ably at the extremity, where it rises to about sixteen feet in height, 

 and sends out to the E.S.E. a low narrow ridge of gravel to a 

 distance of more than two miles, succeeded in the same direction by 

 a row of sandy islets, enclosing a shallow bay of considerable 

 extent. The assemblage of winter huts is placed on the expanded 

 and more elevated extremity, where there is a thin layer of grassy 

 turf. It is called Nu-wuk, or Noo-wook, which signifies emphati- 

 cally "The Point." No doubt the settlement owes its existence 

 to the proximity of the deep sea, in which the whale can be success- 

 fully pursued in the summer and autumn, and to the great extent 

 of shallow waters around, where the seal may be taken at any season 

 of the year. The number of inhabited huts in the winter of 

 1852-3 was fifty-four, reduced to forty-eight in the succeeding year 

 in consequence of the scarcity of oil to supply so many fires, besides 

 a few others which do not seem to have been tenanted for several 

 years, and two dance-houses. The total population at the end of 

 1853 was 309, of whom 166 were males and 143 females. The older 

 people say their numbers are much diminished of late years, a 

 statement to the truth of which the remains of a third dance-house 

 and the number of unoccupied huts bear silent testimony. The 

 latter are in some degree taken care of as if to preserve the right of 

 ownership, and to prevent their being pulled down. Further, a 

 disease, which from description seems to have been influenza, is said 

 to have carried off no less than forty people in the commencement 

 of the winter of 1851-2. In 1852-3 the births we heard of were 

 four or five, and the deaths about ten ; and within the last twelve- 

 month, when our information was more accurate, wo noted only 

 four births, but no fewer than twenty-seven deaths, most, of which 

 occurred from famine, reducing the population at the present lime 

 to 286. The settlement at Cape Smyth, about ten miles distant, con 

 sisting of forty huls, and having about three-fourths the inhabitants, 



