86 Bulletin American Museum of Natural History. [Vol. XIV, 



Ox ; and the Hudson Bay Company have never secured at any of these posts 

 any skins of the Musk-Ox. 



Previous to the advent of the whalers on this coast, the coast Eskimo also 

 traded at these Hudson Bay posts. The country between the Porcupine River 

 and the Arctic Coast, in which district the mountains above mentioned are situ- 

 ated, is entirely accessible from the north or south, and every part of it has been 

 hunted for years by the Eskimo and Indians. Barter Island, near Camden 

 Bay,: has been the rendezvous of the north coast Eskimo for years, where they 

 meet every summer to barter and trade with each other. At one of these mid- 

 summer festivals there may be seen spotted Reindeer skins from Siberia, Wal- 

 rus ivory and Walrus skins from Bering Sea, or the stone lamps from the land 

 of the Kogmoliks (the far-away people) of the East, and it is not impossible, 

 though hardly probable, that Musk-Ox skins might be found there. 



I also travelled through the country of the Kookpugmioots and Abdugmioots 

 of the Arctic Coast, east of the Mackenzie. The first people encountered 

 along the coast east of the Mackenzie are the Kookpugmioots they hunt the 

 coast country as far east as Liverpool Bay, but many of their best hunters never 

 saw a Musk-Ox. The Abdugmioots originally hunted the Anderson River 

 country, but now live around Liverpool Bay, and most of them have hunted 

 Musk-Ox The Kogmoliks, who once lived around Liverpool and Franklin 

 Bays, but who are now practically merged with the Kookpugmioots, along the 

 shores of Allen Channel have been Musk-Ox killers. 



A good many of the Port Clarence natives, living near Bering Straits, have 

 killed Musk-Oxen, but only around the head of Franklin Bay and on Parry 

 Peninsula, they having been taken there by whalers. Nearly all the whaling 

 ships pick up Port Clarence natives, on their way north and east to the whaling 

 grounds, and keep them with them until their return, perhaps thirty months 

 later. Some of these vessels have wintered at Cape Bathurst and in Langton 

 Bay at the head of Franklin Bay. Four of these vessels wintered in Langton 

 Bay in 1897-98, and during the winter their Eskimo and sailors killed about 

 eighty head of Musk-Oxen, most of which were taken on the Parry Peninsula. 

 When I was at Herschel Island, in the winter of 1898, I saw forty of these 

 skins in one of the warehouses of the Pacific Steam Whaling Company. They 

 were the property of Capt. H. H. Bod fish of the steam whaler ' Beluga.' 



The range of the Musk-Ox at the present time does not extend westward to 

 within three hundred miles of the Mackenzie delta. Any information concern- 

 ing the Musk-Ox gathered around Point Barrow and thence south to Bering 

 Straits and Port Clarence, has been obtained from natives who have accompa- 

 nied whaling ships to the East ; and all the Musk-Ox skins that find a market in 

 San Francisco have been purchased, directly or indirectly, from the whaling 

 ships. Very truly yours, 



ANDREW J. STONE. 



