256 ESKIMO HUTS AT POINT BARROW. 



The winter huts at Point Barrow are not placed with any regard 

 to order or regularity, but form a scattered and confused group of 

 grassy mounds, each of which generally covers two separate dwel- 

 lings, with separate entrances ; some, however, are single, and a 

 few are threefold. Behind each are placed a number of tall posts 

 of driftwood, with others fastened across them, to form a stage on 

 which are kept small boats or kaiaks, skins, food, &c, above the 

 height to which the snow may be expected to bank up in the 

 winter, and beyond the reach of dogs. These posts show out very 

 plainly against the horizon in the winter, when everything beneath 

 is covered with snow, and in all seasons may be seen at a con- 

 siderable distance, long before the huts themselves become visible. 

 The entrance to each hut is from the south by a square opening at 

 one end of the roof of a passage twenty-five feet long, and has a 

 slab of ice or other substance of convenient shape to close it at 

 pleasure. The passage, which is at first six feet high, descends 

 gradually until about five feet below the surface of the ground, 

 becoming low and narrow before it terminates beneath the floor of 

 the hut. Near its middle on one side branches off a recess, ten to 

 twelve feet long, with a conical roof open at the top, forming an 

 apartment which serves as a cook-house, and on the other is com- 

 monly enough a similar place, used as a store or clothes' room. 

 The " iglu " or dwelling-place is entered by a round aperture in the 

 floor on the side next the passage, and is a single chamber of a 

 square form, varying in size from twelve to fourteen feet from 

 north to south, by eight to ten from east to west. The roof has a 

 double slope of unequal extent, that on the south side being the 

 larger, with a square opening or window, covered with a transparent 

 membrane stretched into a dome-shape by two pieces of whalebone 

 arched from corner to comer, and is generally a little more than 

 five feet high under the ridge. The smaller part of the roof has 

 between it and the floor a bench, on which a part of the family sleep 

 at night, and sit or lounge during the day. The walls are of stout 

 planks, placed perpendicularly, close at the seams and carefully 

 smoothed on the inside ; the floor and sleeping- bench are the 

 same, whilst overhead are small rounded beams, also smoothed 

 and scraped, sustaining the weight of the earth heaped on top. 

 As the bench and the sleeping-place beneath do not in many in- 

 stances exceed four feet from the wall to the cross-beam at the 

 edge, which serves as a pillow, the occupants cannot be supposed 

 to lie at full length, but this limited extent of the bed-place gives 

 greater space in the other part of the hut, which is thus left nearly 

 square, and is generally occupied by the women sewing or perform- 



