96 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IN ALASKA tWTH.ASN.48 



children. Can not help but kiss his girl of about 10 — she is so 

 fresh and innocent and pretty. Obtain also from the wife of the 

 teacher a good old haf ted " jade " ax, though she hesitates much 

 to part with it — it used to belong to her grandmother; and from 

 the teacher himself a number of interesting articles in old ivory. 

 Leave Doctor Jenness. Have learned to like him much, both for 

 his careful work and personally, in our short association; and at 11 

 a. m. return to the boat. 



Cold, but calm and sunny. Sit on boxes at the very end of the 

 good old Bear. See Asia, the two Diomedes, and Seward Peninsula, 

 all in easy reach, all like so many features of a big lake. Pass around 

 Greater Diomede. 



There never could have been any large settlement on the Diomede 

 Islands — they are not fit for it. The Great Diomede has just two 

 mediocre sites, which are occupied now each by about half a dozen 

 dwellings. A small old settlement, a few stone houses, has also 

 once existed, I am told, on the elevated top of the larger island op- 

 posite the Little Diomede. On the latter only the one visited — every- 

 where else the steep slopes or walls come right down into the water, 

 and there is even no landing possible (or only a precarious one at 

 best) except where we landed. The old natives of the Little Diomede 

 are said to have believed that another village had once existed farther 

 out from the present site and that it has become submerged. The 

 evidence cited (told by the native teacher) is not conclusive, and 

 no indication of such a settlement could be seen from the beach. But 

 in front and possibly beneath the native houses, in the old refuse, 

 there may be remnants of older dwellings. 



Just passed from Monday to Tuesday, and then back to Monday, 

 all in a few hours — the day boundary. We are now just north of the 

 Bering Strait and see all beautifully, in moderate bluish haze. 



A grand panorama of utmost anthropological interest. A big lake, 

 scene of one of the main migrational episodes of mankind. Sea 

 just wrinkling some, day calm, mostly sunny, mildly pleasant, 

 with an undertone of cold. 



How trivial feel here the contentions about the possibilities of 

 Asiatic migrations into America. There can be no such problem 

 with those who have seen what we now are witnessing. Here is a 

 great open pond which on such days as this could be traversed by 

 anyone having as much as a decent canoe. As a matter of fact it 

 has always been and is still thus traversed. (PI. 6, a.) The Chuk- 

 chee carried on a large trade with America, so much so that we find 

 the Russians complaining of their interfering with their trade. 

 (PL 6, b, c.) The Diomede people stand in connection on one hand 

 with the northeastern Asiatics and on the other hand with the whites 



