53 



lion witli the mode of fecundation. Hence the tests of barren echini Avoidd 

 not foi'm an important factor in the accumidation of dc'lris. Judging by the 

 abundance of echini, as they exist to-day, it is not probable that more than 

 twenty people could find sustenance from that source at any one place, noi 

 at that place for more than a quarter of a year, and then only at intervals 

 The size of the specimen I selected was four inches in diameter ; the average 

 size will not exceed two and a half inches. Then birds' eggs, occasional 

 stranded seals and whales (Avhose bones would be left on the beach and 

 finally washed away or destroyed), young birds, and the various edible 

 orchidaceous roots, the FriiiUaria root, and that of the ArcJuwr/cUca, — all these 

 would be consumed and leave no trace. The various mollusks, apparently 

 scarce at that period, would leave a much smaller cubical waste material in 

 proportion to the nutriment they afforded than the echini. Indeed, of the 

 Ilodiola and Mi/fthis, hardly anything but the horny epidermis remains in 

 these beds, and tliese are the most nutritious and abundant moUusks of the 

 region. I account for the absolute absence of bones of any kind, except 

 those of fish, from the Echinus layer, by some superstition like that which 

 necessary economy has forced upon the minds of the present Innuit of 

 Norton Sound. These people, believing that the guardian spirits of the 

 behiga and salmon will be angry if any part of their gifts is wasted, carefully 

 preserve all the bones in a store-house, and at times take the accumulation 

 of years away and secrete it in some secure place where the dogs and wild 

 animals cannot reach it. The Indians have a similar notion on the Yukon. 

 It would seem impossible to doubt that dead carcasses at least of some sea- 

 animals must have been obtained and utilized for food by the littoral people, 

 and their bones may have been similarly treated. Food from all of these 

 sources would have diminished the increase in depth of the Echinus layer in 

 proportion to the amount of nutriment they afforded, and the time represented 

 by it would be thus increased. On the whole, I am disposed to assign a 

 time of not less than one thousand years for the accumulation of this stratum. 

 When we reflect how long the savages of Tierra del Fuego, living in a very 

 similar climate and in a not dissimilar manner, have been known to exist 

 without any perceptible change in their mode of life, this does not seem an 

 excessive estimate. That these savages were antln-opophagi I do not doubt, 

 though there are no evidences of it in the shell-heaps. 



