320 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IX ALASKA [eth. ANN. 46 



spears, and often a heavy club, for what purpose unless used in fighting I 

 could not make out. At the head of each person was a small receptacle, made 

 of whalebone, and in it or alongside was a long wing bone that had been used 

 as a drinking tube. In some cases there seemed to be the remains of food in 

 the platters, but that was impossible to identify. Most of the bodies were laid 

 on the ground, a few had the remains of scrub willow under them, while only 

 in two or three cases bad (here been driftwood planks under the bodies; these 

 were crudely hewn with their old stone adzes. 



There seems to have been some sort of driftwood houses over these bodies 

 at some time, but they decayed and have fallen on the remains, which were in 

 some cases embedded in the ice. Often before the frame had broken down 

 earth must have accumulated and covered the bodies. In these cases the flesh 

 has the consistency of a fine meal. While with those in the ice in some cases 

 part of the flesh still remained. In both cases when exposed to the air they 

 rapidly disintegrated, leaving nothing except the bones. By measurements they 

 must have been a larger race than the present people. 



When your letter reached here I at 'once started making inquiries as to what 

 mounds were still intact; and I find that as far as known only two of the 

 larger ones have not been opened. The Eskimo have been opening the mounds 

 ever since they were found, taking from them all the hunting implements 

 and other material and selling them aboard the ships for curios. It seems a 

 shame that all this should be lost to science, and if no one takes an interest in 

 these places in a year or two they will all be gone. 



I have again made inquiries as to what the present Eskimo think of these 

 people, but they tell me they have no tradition regarding them and that they 

 do not know if they were their ancestors or not. In fact, they are ignorant 

 of where they came from or when they died. 



To date I do not know of any whaling implement being found with these 

 old people, neither is any of the framework of these mounds made from the 

 bones of whales. In some of the implements ivory has been used. The mounds 

 farthest from the shore were about 4U0 yards, those that remain are closer to 

 the beach. Some of the smaller ones are on the banks of small streams but 

 never very far from shore. Undoubtedly, however, they were at one time 

 considerably farther from the sea. but the sea is every year claiming some 

 of this land, especially where the banks are high along the beach. There the 

 beach is narrow and during a gale the waves wash out the land at its base. 

 This is about all that I can tell you of these people. All credit for finding 

 these mounds belongs to Van Valin. 



Tours truly, Chas. D. Beower. 



The material. — The collection as received at the Wistar Institute 

 was notable for its general dark color, enhanced in many of the 

 specimens by dark to black remains of the tissues. There was no 

 mineralization and but little bone decay, though the bones were 

 somewhat brittle. 



There is a scarcity of children and adolescents; there are in fact 

 only two skulls of subjects less than 20 years of age in the collection. 



The skulls and bones that remain show no violence. 



The remains show a complete freedom from syphilis or other con- 

 stitutional disease; the only pathological condition present in some 

 of the bones being arthritis. This speaks strongly for their preced- 



