G2 



viously existed, and in the ceaseless struggle by Avliicli the northern barbarian 

 wrests his sustenance from a niggardly environment, a surplus store of food 

 would give him now and then a breathing spell. This would render it 

 possible for an occasional inventive or aesthetic idea to geraiinate and grow. 



The sharp line of definition between the Echinus layer and the Fish- 

 bone layer, which suggested an incursion of fishermen upon the echino- 

 phagi, is not paralleled in the line between this and the Mammalian stratum. 

 The distinction is readily marked in an actual section of a shell-heap, but 

 the uppermost portion of the Fishbone bed contains some mammalian 

 bones, and the ]\lammalian bed throughout, but particularly at its base, con- 

 tains a fair proportion of fish-bones. In fact, the change is what we might 

 expect in the progress of a race stimulated by new invention or application 

 of means which placed new, valuable, raid eagerly-accepted powers within 

 their reach. 



Unlike the previous stratum, the limitations of population and con- 

 sumption, of demand and suppl}^, are so vague that even the most lax 

 hypothesis will not permit us to attempt any computation of the length of 

 time which it might take to form a layer like the Fishbone layer. I believe 

 it to have been nearly as long as the time required for the Echinus layer, 

 but this is only an assumption. 



The earliest remains of man found in Alaska up to the date of writing 

 I refer to this epoch. These are some crania found by us in the lowermost 

 part of the Amaknak Cave, and a cranium obtained at Adakh near the 

 anchorage in the Bay of Islands. 



These were deposited in a remarkable manner, precisely similar to that 

 adopted and still practiced by most of the continental Innuit, but equally 

 different from the modern Aleut fashion. 



At the Amaknak Cave we found what at first appeared to be a wooden 

 inclosTire, but which proved to be made of the very much decayed supra- 

 maxillary bones of some large cetacean. These were arranged so as to 

 fomi a rude rectangular inclosure covered over with similar pieces of bone. 

 This Avas somewhat less than four feet long, two wide, and eighteen inches 

 deep. The bottom was formed of flat pieces of stone. Three such Avere 



