BBDLICXA] WRITER'S TRIP ON YUKON 117 



August 19. Off Nome once more. Everything, city, mountains, 

 appear exceedingly, unnaturally clear- — not a good sign. After 

 !» a, in. go to town. Soon at the Lomens' headquarters, and the sons, 

 particularly Carl, bring out three smaller hoxes full of things from 

 St. Lawrence and Nunivak Islands, and give me the choice of all. 

 And after I am through — near two hours' fast work — Carl adds one 

 beautiful tusk (carved) from Nunivak Island, and then adds another, 

 and two big bones of a mammoth, some as gifts, some as an addition 

 to his loan to our institution. Excellent men. 



Lunch with Ralph and Carl; then a good walk in the open; and 

 then another lecture. All pleased, and two bring me specimens for 

 our museum. Slowly back to boat and 4.45 on the Bear again. Nice 

 day. but getting cooler and blustery. 



Captain Ross comes to port, the graphophone starts its usual jazz 

 songs next (ward) room, then the supper, all visitors gone, and the 

 Bear raises anchor to be off for the north once more. 



August 19. evening. A new, final chapter begins with to-day. 

 What will it contain when over? 



August 20. Rough. Go north until in plain sight of the Diomedes 

 as well as Cape Wales, and then the captain decides landing would 

 be risky, if not impossible; and so reluctantly we turn back and 

 proceed toward Teller. What a tantalizing experience this must 

 have been to poor Jenness, who is waiting for us on the Little 

 Diomede, a most dreary place, to be taken off; and I, too, expected 

 collections at both the Diomedes and the Cape. 



Saturday. August 21. Port Clarence, off Teller. This proved 

 a day never to be forgotten; for failure of a rigid system, for had 

 weather, for strain and endurance, and nearness to almost anything. 



My purpose was to utilize the Hem's visit to Teller for a survey 

 of a Chukchee-Eskimo battle field, of which I heard repeatedly 

 from the Yukon onward. Sometime during the earlier half of the 

 last century the Chukchee from Asia are said to have made an in- 

 vasion of the peninsula and to have reached as far as the Salt Lake, 

 east of Teller, when they were met by the united Eskimo and badly 

 defeated. The exact spot where this happened is, however, some- 

 what uncertain, and it was to locate it, examine, and collect what 

 might be possible of the remains that were said to be still there 

 that I asked Captain Cochran to let me have one of the motor boats, 

 to which he kindly consented, uniting the trip with some topographi- 

 cal observations for his own purposes. 



The evening before I was told by the second officer that we shall 

 start some time soon after midnight for that part of the old battle 

 field — there seemed to be two of them — at the eastern point of the 

 Salt Lake. As a result could not undress, and after ship stopped in 



