24  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
that  as  a  result  of  this  improvidence  they  had  succumbed  to  hunger 
during  the  following  winter.  While  whiskey  may  have  been  a  con- 
tributing factor  in  some  cases,  its  importance  has  undoubtedly  been 
exaggerated,  for  it  is  inconceivable  that  the  general  mortality  which 
followed,  affecting  every  village  on  the  island,  could  be  attributed 
to  such  a  cause.  The  Eskimos  themselves  deny  that  liquor  was  in 
any  way  responsible.  On  the  whole  it  seems  likely  that  many  of  the 
deaths  were  caused  by  an  epidemic  which  struck  the  island  while  the 
Eskimos  were  already  in  a  weakened  condition  from  lack  of  food. 
That  famine  was  not  the  sole  cause  would  appear  from  the  Eskimos' 
statements  to  the  effect  that  meat  was  found  in  the  caches  at  some  of 
the  villages  where  all  of  the  people  had  died. 
In  1881  the  Corzmn  again  touched  at  St.  Lawrence  Island,  and  E.  W. 
Nelson  and  John  Muir,  who  were  accompanying  Captain  Hooper, 
went  ashore  at  several  places.  It  was  on  this  trip  that  Nelson  obtained 
the  large  collection  of  ethnological  material  from  the  Island  which 
is  now  in  the  United  States  National  Museum  and  which  is  partially 
described  in  the  eighteenth  Annual  Report  of  the  Bureau  of  American 
Ethnology. 
In  1894  a  school  was  established  at  Sevuokok,  the  large  village  at 
the  northwestern  end  of  the  island.  The  first  teachers,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
V.  C.  Gambell,  remained  3  years.  They  were  drowned  in  1898  while 
returning  to  St.  Lawrence  after  a  year's  leave  of  absence,  and  the 
village  was  thereafter  called  Gambell,  in  their  honor.  Mr.  Gambell 
left  an  interesting  account  of  their  experiences  called  "  The  School- 
house  Farthest  West." '  One  of  the  later  teachers,  W.  F.  Doty,  also 
published  a  short  account  of  the  St.  Lawrence  Eskimos  which  con- 
tains considerable  information  of  ethnological  value.' 
The  first  anthropological  work  on  St.  Lawrence  Island  was  con- 
ducted by  Dr.  Riley  D.  Moore,  who  spent  the  summer  of  1912  at 
Gambell  making  anthropometrical  studies  of  the  Eskimos  and  collect- 
ing ethnological  and  skeletal  material  for  the  Smithsonian  Institution. 
Moore's  measurements  on  the  living  Eskimos  and  the  measurements 
on  the  180  skulls  collected  by  him  have  been  published  by  Dr.  Ales 
"  Published  in  the  Youth's  Companioti  and  later  issued  in  pamphlet  form 
(undated)  by  the  Woman's  Board  of  Home  Missions  of  the  Presbyterian 
Church,  156  Fifth  Ave.,  New  York. 
'  The  Eskimo  on  St.  Lawrence  Island,  Alaska,  pp.  186-223,  9th  Annual  Report 
on  Introduction  of  Domestic  Reindeer  into  Alaska,  1899,  by  Sheldon  Jackson, 
Washington,   1900. 
