Jan. 27, 1887' 



NATURE 



309 



Irrawadi there could be no question. Such a rainfall seemed 

 in itself quite sufficient to account for the large volume of water 

 that was drained oft' by the lower portions of the Irrawadi ; and 

 anybody who knew what Tibet was, General Strachey stated, 

 must be aware that, even with a course of several hundred 

 miles, the river would pick up but a small quantity of water in 

 comparison with the enormous volumes which were collected 

 from the rain which fell in Upper Burmah. Geneial Strachey 

 had roughly calculated that a monthly fall of rain of iS inches 

 over a square degree would mean 65,000 cubic feet per second 

 for the whole month. 



The latest news from Dr. Bunge, chief of the Russian Polar 

 Station at the moutli of tlie Lena, is encouraging. Telegraphing 

 from Orkinga, a telegraph-station on the road to Yakutsk, Dr. 

 Bunge informs the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg that his 

 e.Kpedition has had a successful issue. They passed the summer 

 in two islands of the New Siberia Archipelago ; Bunge on Great 

 Liakovsky, and Toll on Kotelnoy Island. During spring all the 

 five islands of the group were explored. New Siberia especially 

 by Toll. The mainland was reached at the end of October. The 

 scientific results are very considerable, and, as we know so little 

 about these islands, are likely to be novel. 



MM. PoTANiN, Skassy, AND BfcRfeOFSKY have lately re- 

 turned from their expedition to China and Mongolia, bringing 

 numerous collections in anthropology, zoology, and botany, 

 besides maps of the country which they have traversed during 

 their three years' journey ( 18S4-86). The Russian Geographical 

 Society has nominated a committee, consisting of MM. Steb- 

 nitsky, Tillo, Mushketoft", and Schmidt, to make inquiries as 

 to the desiccation of Siberian lakes. It is expected that an 

 expedition will be despatched to investigate the subject on 

 the spot. 



We learn that the geographical results achieved by the Survey 

 officers on the Afghan Frontier Commission extend over 100,000 

 square miles of country. The Indian Survey officers have been 

 very busy in Upper Burmah. Captain Hobson's map, prepared 

 from all available sources, in 14 sheets, is all published already. 

 A reduction therefrom, on the scale of 16 miles to an inch, has been 

 ]irepared in the Surveyer-General's Office, Calcutta, and published 

 also. The Survey party, which has lately completed the Andaman 

 Islands survey, left Calcutta on November ig, under the charge 

 of Major G. Strahan, R.E. , to undertake the survey of the 

 Nicobar Islands. 



THE ESKIMO 

 OPECIAL interest attaches to a paper on " The East Green- 

 ■~^ landers in their relations to the other Eskimo Tribes," 

 contributed by'Dr. H. Rink to the current number of the 

 Deutsche Geographischc Bliilter{]ixt\\\f:xv, iSS6)_ Hitherto these 

 hyperboreans have been studied by independent observers, 

 chiefly in Alaska at the eastern, and in Greenland and Labrador 

 at the western extremity of their domain, while through lack of 

 sufficient materials the intermediate branches thinly scattered 

 round the Arctic shores from the Mackenzie to Baffin Bay have 

 lieen mostly neglected. Here, however, we have for the first time 

 a comprehensive ethnological survey of the whole field by perhaps 

 the greatest living authority on the subject, based on the rich 

 collections recently brought to Europe by Capt. Holm from East 

 ( Greenland, by the brothers Krause and A. Jakobsen from 

 Alaska, and by F. Boas from the central region of Baffin 

 Land. 



With these materials before him, and keeping in view the 

 I lets already determined by previous students. Dr. Rink is able 

 ■ throw much light, if not on the origin, at least on the general 

 Itiie of dispersion, and still more on the social evolution and art 

 history, of the Eskuno race. He/makes it sufficiently evident 

 that their primceval home must be placed in the extreme north- 

 west, on the Alaskan shores of the Bering Sea,~where they 

 probably acquired a knowledge of some of the useful industries 

 connected with navigation, fishing, and hunting from the neigh- 

 bouring Indian tribes of Athabascan stock. From this point 

 the migratory movement appears to have been partly across the 

 neck of the Alaskan Peninsula to the Copper River, where their 

 further progress in this direction was arrested by the Thlinkit 

 Indians on the coast and by the Athabascans in the interior. 

 But their wanderings were chiefly directed 'towards the north 

 and east, that is, along " the hne of least resistance " around 



the unoccupied Arctic seabo.ard down to Baffin Bay, which seems 

 to have formed a fresh point of dispersion, southwards to Labra- 

 dor and eastwards to East and West Greenland. Dr. Rink is 

 inclined to accept the view of Capt. Holm, that the Angmagsa- 

 liks, or East Greenlanders, found their way round the unexplored 

 north coast of Greenland to their present homes, and that the 

 West Greenlanders passed from Baffin Bay directly southwards, 

 while a mixed race, most probably including old Norse elements, 

 was developed at the southern extremity of the peninsula. In 

 the extreme west there has also been a slight intermingling, with 

 Thlinkits about the Copper River, and with Athabascans, 

 back of Kotzebue Sound ; but elsewhere the Innuit and 

 Karalik (Western and Eastern Eskimo) have kept entirely 

 aloof, nowhere amalgamating with the Red Man, and keeping 

 mainly to the seaboard throughout the whole extent of their 

 domain, which, between the Copper River and Cape Farewell, 

 Greenland, cannot be estimated at less than 7000 miles in extent, 

 although scarcely anywhere exceeding 150 miles inland from the 

 coast. This explains the curious fact that the social organisation 

 of the Indian tribes in families, gentes, phratries, confederacies, 

 and nations can nowhere be detected amongst the Eskimo, 

 unless to it is to be attributed a certain restriction in the choice 

 of a wife, and an obligation to lend each other mutual aid, uni- 

 versally recognised amongst all branches of the race. Even the 

 general distribution into tribes, assumed by most writers, appears 

 to be quite groundless, and the final syllable, mAt, tnii'it, of the 

 so-called tribal names, meaning "'dweller," "inhabitant of," 

 shjws that they are purely topographical terms without any 

 ethnical significance whatsover. Thus, Angmagsalingmiut, 

 Mahlemiiit, Aglemiut = inhabitants of the Angmagsalik, 

 Mahlc, Agle districts, and so on ; so much so, that a family 

 migrating from one of these districts to another changes its 

 name accordingly. Hence Dr. Rink considers it sufficient for 

 all practical purposes to class the whole race into the following 

 seven geographical groups: — (l) South Alaskan; (2) North 

 Alaskan ; (3) Mackenzie; (4) Central (Baffin Land, &c.) ; (5) 

 Labrador ; (6 and 7) West and East Greenland. Between 

 these various groups there certainly exist difterences, by which 

 they may often be readily distinguished ; but these are mainly 

 of a social and linguistic, and to a less extent of a physical 

 character ; and such is the great uniformity even in the structure 

 of the Eskimo tongue, that an East Greenlander and an Alas- 

 kan, if fortuitously thrown together, would soon begin to under- 

 stand one another. It is noteworthy that in Greenland, where 

 the language has been most carefully studied, greater differences 

 are observed between the eastern and western than between the 

 northern and southern dialects — a circumstance doubtless due to 

 the different routes followed by the two streams of immigration 

 from the central region. Compared with the Wett Greenland 

 dialect, taken as the written standard, the Labrador is found to 

 contain 15, the Central 20, the Mackenzie 31, and the Alaskan 

 53 per cent, of different root-words — relations which correspond 

 remarkably well with the conclusions arrived at, on other 

 grounds, regarding the general migratory movement from 

 Alaska, the assumed cradle of the race. 



But here an important exception is formed by the Aleutian 

 Islanders, who are treated by Dr. Rink as a branch of the 

 Eskimo family, but whose language diverges profoundly from, 

 or rather shows no perceptible affinity at all to, the Eskimo. 

 The old question respecting the ethnical affinities of the 

 Aleutians is thus again raised, but not further di cussed by our 

 author. To say that they must be regarded as " ein abnormer 

 Seitenzweig," merely avoids the difficulty, while perhnps ob- 

 scuring or misstating the true relations altogether. For these 

 islanders should possibly be regarded, not as " an abnormal off- 

 shoot," but as the original stock from which the Eskimos them- 

 selves have diverged. - It is remarkable that in his new work on 

 " Alaska and the Seal Islands " Henry W. Elliott discover^ a 

 striking resemblance between the .Meutians and the Japanese. 

 They constantly remind him of "Japanese faces and forms in 

 another costume," so much so that in his opinion they form "a 

 perfect link of gradation," not between the Eskimo and Red 

 Man, nor between the Eskimo and Asiatic hyperboreans, but 

 "between the Japanese and Eskimo" (p. 173). Mr. Elliott 

 may have here unconsciously hit upon the solution of a very 

 interesting ethnological problem, for in his "Classification of 

 the Varieties of the Human Species " (yournal of the Anthropo- 

 logical Institute, May 1885), Prof. Flower also connects the 

 Eskimo with the Japanese : — " Every special characteristic which 

 distinguishes a Japanese from the average of mankind is seen in 



