356 ANTHROPOLOGICAL SURVEY IN ALASKA [eth. ann. -i. 



Another point is that heterogeneous and wide apart as many of the 

 opinions may seem, yet when the subject is looked upon with a 

 larger perspective they may often perhaps be harmonized. Thus a 

 belief in an American origin of the Eskimo need not exclude that in 

 the Asiatic derivation of his parental stock. Even in the case of the 

 supposed European derivation the Eskimo are understood to have 

 reached America through Asia; there is not one suggestion of any 

 importance advocating the coming of the Eskimo over northwestern 

 Europe and Iceland. Only the Meigs-Grote-Nordenskiold theory of 

 an ancient polar race and its descent southward appears now as 

 beyond the bounds of what would be at least partly justifiable. 



What is the contribution to the subject of the studies reported in 

 this treatise, with its relatively great amount of somatological mate- 

 rial? The answer is not easy. 



Even the truly great and precious material at hand is not sufficient. 

 There are important parts of the Arctic, such as the Hudson Bay 

 region, Baffin Land, and the central region; several parts of the west 

 coast, such as the inland waters of the Seward Peninsula and the 

 Eskimo portions of the Selawik, Kobuk, Noatak, and Yukon Rivers ; 

 and above all the Eskimo part of northeastern Siberia, from which 

 there are insufficient or no collections. There is. moreover, especially 

 in this country, a great want of skeletal material from the non-Es- 

 kimo Siberian tribes, and also from the old European peoples that are 

 of most importance for comparisons. It must be plain, therefore, 

 that even at present no final deductions are possible. All that can 

 be claimed for the evidence here brought forth is that it clears, or 

 tends to settle, certain secondary problems, and that it presents in- 

 dications of value for the rest of the question. 



The secondary problems that may herewith be regarded as settled 

 are as follows: 



1. Unify or plurality of the race. — The materials at hand give no 

 substantiation to the possibility of the Eskimo belonging to more than 

 one basic strain of people. They range in color from tan or light 

 reddish-yellow to medium brown; in stature from decidedly short 

 to above the general human medium : in head from brachycephalio 

 and low to extremely dolichocephalic, high and keel shaped; in eves 

 from horizontal to decidedly mongoloid; in orbits from microseme 

 to hypermegasemc ; in nose from fully mesorrhinic to extremely 

 leptorrhinic : in physiognomy from pure "Indian" to extreme 

 " Eskimo." Yet all through there runs, both in the living and in 

 the skeletal remains, so much of a basic identity that no separation 

 into any distinct original "races" is possible. At most it is permis- 

 sible to speak of a few prevalent types. 



2. Relation. — The general basic prototype of the Eskimo, accord- 

 ing to all evidence, is so closely akin to that of the Indian that the two 



