276  SMITHSONIAN    MISCELLANEOUS    COLLECTIONS  VOL.    96 
either  near  the  entrance  or  at  the  center  of  the  floor.  Schrenck  cites 
references  showing  that  low  sleeping  platforms  extended  along  two 
sides  of  the  house.  Beneath  these  were  sliding  compartments  or 
drawers  which  Schrenck  attributes  to  Japanese  influence. 
On  Shikotan,  a  small  island  to  the  northeast  of  Yezo,  dwellings  are 
described  which  are  composed  of  two  parts,  a  front  thatched  house 
for  summer  occupancy  and  a  connected  earth-covered  house  for  use 
during  the  winter  (Hitchcock,  1891  a,  pp.  423-425).  The  square  sum- 
mer house  with  thatched  walls  and  roof  resembles  that  described  by 
Schrenck  from  Yezo,  but  the  earth-covered  winter  house  is  of  especial 
interest  in  that  it  represents  in  all  probability  an  approach  to  the  origi- 
nal Ainu  semisubterranean  dwelling.  The  floor  is  slightly  sunken, 
to  a  depth  of  12  to  18  inches,  and  is  approximately  circular  in  outline, 
with  two  connected  sleeping  platforms.  The  two  houses  are  connected 
by  a  covered  passageway.  This  Asiatic  example  of  a  summer  and  a 
winter  house  connected  by  a  passage  recalls  the  somewhat  similar 
arrangement  in  Alaska  where  there  is  commonly  a  large  anteroom  con- 
nected with  the  inner  room ;  and  more  specifically  it  recalls  the  ar- 
rangement described  in  the  report  of  the  Eleventh  Census  (Porter, 
1893,  pp.  104,  105,  172)  of  houses  from  the  middle  Kuskokwim  and 
Yukon  regions  in  Alaska.  "  The  buildings  ....  (consist)  generally  of 
two  parts,  one  underground  and  the  other  above.  The  latter,  which  is 
generally  used  in  summer  and  connected  with  the  other  by  a  tunneled 
passage,  is  constructed  of  logs  and  roofed  with  sods ;  it  also  contains 
a  central  fireplace  for  cooking,  which  is  utilized  throughout  the  year. 
The  winter  habitation  differs  in  no  way  from  the  common  subterranean 
dwelling " 
From  Torii's  account  (1919,  p.  237)  of  the  houses  of  the  Kurilian 
Ainu  it  is  seen  that  these  also  had  a  separate  entrance  room,  used 
for  cooking  and  storage,  and  connected  by  means  of  a  passage  with 
the  inner  living  room. 
As  in  the  case  of  the  Koryak,  Kamchadal,  and  Gilyak,  the  under- 
ground houses  of  the  Ainu  also  show  certain  resemblances  to  those 
of  west  and  southwest  Alaska.  However,  the  similarities  are  mainly 
those  of  shape  and  interior  arrangement,  for  the  walls  and  roof  in 
the  Ainu  house  were  more  lightly  constructed,  and  lacked  the  four 
centrally  placed  roof  supports  which  characterized  the  three  other 
Asiatic  examples  and  the  Eskimo  houses  south  of  Bering  Strait. 
The  houses  in  use  on  the  Aleutian  Islands  in  the  eighteenth  century 
have  been  described,  though  very  imperfectly,  by  Cook,  Sauer,  and 
Eangsdorff.  Those  at  Unalaska  are  described  by  Cook  (1784,  vol.  3, 
pp.  108-110)  as  follows: 
