NO.    I  ARCHEOLOGY    OF    ST.    LAWRENCE   ISLAND COLLINS  75 
the  earlier  house.  In  plate  9,  figure  i,  the  same  stake  is  visible  from 
another  angle,  still  resting  on  the  pillar  of  gravel  which  was  left 
in  place  so  as  to  show  this  detail.  In  the  disturbed  NW.  corner  we 
were  unable  to  find  a  roof  support  such  as  had  been  placed  at  the 
three  other  corners. 
Of  the  front  or  west  wall  nothing  remained  save  the  threshold,  a 
whale  jaw  (pi.  9,  fig.  3,  in  foreground)  which  extended  from  the  NW. 
corner  to  within  20  inches  of  the  post  at  the  SW.  corner.  It  was  laid 
on  edge  and  projected  about  6  inches  above  the  stone  floor.  Two  deep, 
smoothed  notches  had  been  cut  into  the  somewhat  sharp  upper  edge 
of  the  bone,  over  which  the  occupants  crawled  as  they  entered  the 
house. 
The  entrance  passage  was  traced  out  and  excavated  for  a  distance 
of  18  feet,  beyond  which  point  we  were  unable  to  go  because  of  the 
lateness  of  the  season  and  the  frozen  ground.  The  floor  of  the  passage 
was  of  stone  slabs  (pi.  9,  fig.  3),  those  just  below  the  whale  jaw  at 
the  entrance  being  15  inches  lower  than  the  floor  of  the  house;  from 
this  point  outward  the  passage  floor  descended  very  gradually  until 
about  midway  of  its  length  it  was  22  inches  below  the  floor  level  of 
the  house.  The  walls  of  the  passage  were  formed  of  stones,  most  of 
them  long  slabs  set  upright ;  some  were  braced  with  walrus  penis  bones 
and  tusks.  The  roof  of  the  passage,  like  that  of  house  no.  3,  had  been 
constructed  of  logs,  first  a  series  of  transverse  beams  spaced  at  inter- 
vals of  3  to  4  feet  and  over  these  a  covering  layer  of  longer  timbers 
running  lengthwise.  Two  wooden  uprights  placed  in  front  of  the 
whale  jaw  threshold  served  as  roof  supports  for  the  inner  end  of 
the  passage.  There  were  three  other  upright  timbers  set  into  the 
walls  of  the  passage  which  helped  to  carry  the  superstructure  of  the 
roof.  Most  of  the  transverse  roof  beams,  however,  rested  on  the  up- 
right stone  slabs  except  at  one  place,  where  the  ends  of  two  of  them 
rested  on  two  of  the  longer  lengthwise  pieces.  At  the  inner  end 
the  entrance  passage  was  5  feet  wide.  Beyond  this,  at  the  center,  it 
narrowed  to  a  width  of  about  3  feet;  then,  at  a  distance  of  12  feet, 
it  turned  rather  sharply  to  the  left,  making  a  bulge  or  recess  as  it 
turned.  Beyond  this  point  the  passage  narrowed  to  a  width  of  27 
inches.  How  much  further  it  extended  we  were  unable  to  determine, 
for  the  excavation  did  not  reach  this  stage  until  October,  and  it  was 
impossible  to  remove  both  the  5  feet  of  undisturbed  frozen  soil  above 
the  passage  floor  and  the  additional  4  feet  or  so  of  similar  material, 
now  also  frozen,  which  we  had  thrown  out.  For  the  same  reason  the 
wall  was  not  traced  out  entirely  at  two  other  places — the  recess  where 
the  passage  turned  to  the  left  and  the  enlargement  at  the  inner  end. 
