266  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
thiassen  while  leaving  the  question  open,  shows  at  least  that  the  earlier 
Greenland  form  was  the  rounded  whale  bone  house  of  the  Thule  type. 
Mathiassen  questions  Steensby's  view  that  the  pear-shaped  house 
of  the  Polar  Eskimo  had  its  prototype  in  the  rectangular  Point  Barrow 
house.  It  is,  he  contends,  "  a  local  derivative  of  the  round  whale  bone 
house  of  the  Thule  culture  and  is  a  type  of  house  that  has  certainly 
originated  in  North  Greenland."  He  regards  the  Point  Barrow  and 
Thule  houses  as  "  co-ordinate  forms  of  dwellings,  born  of  different 
materials  ",  and  mentions  the  possibility  that  the  latter  may  have 
originated  from  a  Point  Barrow  house  transplanted  to  regions  where 
whale  bones  had  to  replace  wood  as  a  building  material  (1927,  vol.  2, 
pp.  149,  153) .  Whatever  may  have  been  the  origin  of  the  Polar  Eskimo 
and  Thule  houses,  one  fact  seems  clear,  as  recognized  by  Thalbitzer, 
Steensby,  and  Mathiassen,  and  that  is  that  there  are  definite  resem- 
blances in  platform  arrangement  and  roof  structure  between  these 
eastern  forms  and  the  Point  Barrow  house  of  Alaska. 
This  brings  us  to  a  consideration  of  an  important  question,  namely, 
the  status  of  the  Point  Barrow  house  in  Alaska  and  its  relation  to 
other  Alaskan  forms.  The  statement  is  often  made  that  the  Point 
Barrow  house  is  the  typical  Alaskan  form  of  dwelling.  Thus,  Steensby 
(1916,  p.  192)  says,  "A  house  of  the  Point  Barrow  type  is  pre- 
dominant ....  along  the  entire  west  coast  of  Alaska  from  Point 
Barrow  to  the  region  south  of  the  mouth  of  the  Kuskokwim  River." 
And  Mathiassen  (1927,  II,  pp.  152,  153):  "The  prevailing  form 
of  house  in  Alaska  is  the  four-sided  house  supported  by  timber,  which, 
in  its  Arctic,  typical  form  we  know  from  Point  Barrow The 
other  house  forms  in  Alaska  and  the  long  earth  house  of  the  Aleuts 
....  seem  to  be  variants  of  the  Point  Barrow  house " 
However,  as  we  have  seen,  it  is  only  by  disregarding  the  Eskimo 
house  types  to  the  south  of  Bering  Strait  that  one  can  say  that  the 
Point  Barrow  house  is  typical  of  Alaska.  Below  Norton  Sound  we  find 
a  house  which,  though  varying  somewhat  from  place  to  place,  is  still 
of  a  single  general  type,  in  which  the  roof  is  at  least  partially  domed 
(except  on  St.  Lawrence  Island)  and  supported  by  uprights  set  either 
in  the  floor  or  along  the  walls,  and  in  which  low  platforms  extend 
around  two  or  more  sides.  The  Point  Barrow  house  differs  funda- 
mentally from  this  type  in  roof  structure  and  in  the  arrangement  of 
the  platform.  The  roof  is  gabled,  with  a  doubled  slant,  and  is  sup- 
ported by  a  single  transverse  ridge  pole,  resting  on  the  wall  uprights ; 
and  the  single  platform  extending  from  the  back  wall  is  wide  and  high, 
and  occupies  about  a  third  of  the  room.  This  type  of  house  is  first 
found,  in  modified  form,  at  Bering  Strait   (Metlatavik).    Consider- 
