NATIVES OF ARCTIC REGIONS. 165 



the more temperate regions of the globe. 

 So long as they were still in those 

 regions, the ancestors of the Eskimo must 

 have lived in another manner, and must have 

 had wholly different habits. They may 

 have practised such simple agriculture as 

 we know was practised among the most 

 ancient people who have left their remains 

 in the Swiss Lake Dwellings. They may 

 have been nomads living on their flocks 

 and herds. But neither an agricultural nor a 

 pastoral life is possible on the borders of a 

 frozen sea. The rigours of the region they 

 now inhabit have reduced this people to the 

 condition in which we now see them, and 

 whatever arts their fathers knew, suited to 

 more genial climates, have been, and could 



