ANTHROPOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 33 



To Messrs. Oothout and Williamson the speaker was deeply 

 indebted for sketches, diagrams, and measurements of the mounds 

 and other aboriginal remains subsequently explored by the party. 



With reference to the age of the burial cave, as a place of 

 sepulture, the explorer cautiously reserved his opinion until he 

 should again visit the locality and complete his research by remov- 

 ing all the debris in the bottom to a depth of two or three yards. 

 The present floor, he thought, is now near the former roof of the 

 cave. 



Some of the stalagmites on the floor of the second chamber 

 were four inches in diameter at the base and nearly a foot high ; 

 yet this feature could not safely be taken as an indication of the 

 time since the cave had ceased to be used for burial purposes, as 

 the free humidity of the overlying soil — or an absence of the same 

 condition — would have a direct tendency very greatly to accelerate 

 or retard the formation of both travertine and stalagmites. 



Thirty-Fifth Regular Meeting, March i, 1881. 



Mr. Ivan Petroff read a paper entitled Amphibious Aborigines 

 of Alaska. 



He described a peculiar tribe of Innuits who inhabit the lower 

 Kuskoquim and the coast from Cape Newenham nearly to Bristol 

 Bay, in Alaska, and who spend at least half of their time on or in 

 the water. Their houses are built close to the sea-shore, and they 

 spend a large part of their time in their skin-boats or "kiaks." 

 The children go nearly naked, and are as much at home in their 

 kiaks as on land. The people live chiefly on fish and seals, which 

 they spear with great skill. They keep their weapons and boats 

 scrupulously clean, this being essential to success in hunting, but 

 pay no attention to the cleansing of their own bodies which are 

 allowed to become extremely filthy. They eat their food for the 

 most part uncooked. Storms and tides often inundate the swampy 

 shore on which their partly subterranean dwellings are built, and 

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