60 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IN ALASKA [bth. ann. 46 



My limbs are a sight from the gnats. Must apply Aseptinol. 

 Worse than any mosquitoes; like the worst chiggers. Poisonous — 

 some hemolytic substance, which causes also much itching, especially 

 at night. 



Arrange to leave to-morrow. Good people these, unpretentious, 

 but white through and through. 



Mr. Lawrence, the local trader, who with his boy was with me 

 yesterday, is going to take me to an old site down the river and then 

 to Holy Cross. Donates a fine old ivory arrow point from the site 

 mentioned. Doctor Chapman gives three old dishes and two stone 

 axes — haft on one of recent manufacture. The natives seem to have 

 nothing of this nature, and no old site is near. The nearest is 

 Bonasila, where we go to-morrow. 



This is truly a fish country. Along the placid Anvik River fish 

 smell everywhere — dead fish on shore here and there, or fish eggs, 

 or offal. 



Wednesday, June 30. Hazy and cool, 52° F. Take leave with 

 friend, Doctor Chapman, then at school, and leave 8 a. m. for 

 Bonasila. 



The gnat pest was bad this morning — could hardly load my bag- 

 gage; had to apply the smear again, but this helps only where 

 put and for a time only. 



Bonasila 



Close to 10 a. m. arrive at the Bonasila site. Not much — 

 just a low bank of the big river, not over 4 feet high in front, and 

 a higher rank grass-covered flat with a little stream on the left and a 

 hill on the right. But the flat is full of fossae of old barabras 

 (pit and tunnel dwellings), all wood on surface gone; and there is a 

 cemetery to the right and behind, on a slope. 



Examine beach and banks minutely until 12. Modest lunch — -two 

 sandwiches, a bit of cake and tea — and then begin to examine the 

 shore again. Soon after arrival finding bones of animals, some 

 partly fossilized; beaver, deer, caribou, bear, fox, dog, etc., all 

 species still living in Alaska, as found later, though no more in the 

 immediate neighborhood. 



Mosquitoes and gnats bad — use lot of oil. Begin soon to find 

 remarkably primitive looking stone tools, knockers, scrapers, etc. 

 Crawl through washed-down trees and brush. Many stones on the 

 beach show signs of chipping or use. Very crude — a protolithic in- 

 dustry; but a few pieces better and showing polished edge. Also 

 plenty of fragments of pottery, not seldom decorated (indented). 

 Make quite a collection. And then, to cap it, find parts of human 

 skeleton, doubtless washed out from the bank. Much missing, but a 



