322 



Northumberland Island^) off the Gulf of Inglefield 

 and in К am a h on the same fjord ^), as well as several other 

 places on Smith Sound. It is in fact the want of wood 

 which has undoubtedly been the determining reason why the 

 Eskimo in many places have had to resort to stone houses^). 



That the Eskimo in Scoresby Sund did not possess 

 any great amount of drift-timber will be gathered, amongst 

 other things , from the fact that the rafter-work in most 

 of the houses examined by Ryder was partially composed of 

 whale ribs and large whale bones. Moreover, it is patent that 

 the longer the ice lies frozen in the fjord and along the coast, 

 the less drift-timber will be washed ashore. This circumstance 

 by itself is sufficient to account for the fact that the drift- 

 timber will be found in larger quantities at such places as 

 €. g. Angmagsalik than further north. Another important 

 factor is that the main arm of the stream which flows from 

 the Polar Sea runs in a curve a little west of Spitz- 

 bergen down towards Jan Mayen, until just south of that 

 island it is forced closer in to the East coast of Green- 

 land^). It is a well-known fact that large quantities of drift- 

 timber are to be found on the island of Jan Mayen, and 

 when in the year 1900, we entered the ice-belt, at circa 74° 

 lat. , we came across a great deal of drift-timber in the edge 

 of the pack-ice, while only a small quantity was seen inside 

 the ice-belt. 



Thus, if we imagine the present inhabitants of Angmag- 

 salik to have migrated northwards, the houses must by the 

 force of circumstances inevitably get smaller and smaller; but, 

 on the other hand, we should hardly expect to ßnd the quite 



^) Robert E.Peary. Northward over the great ice. Vol.1 P. 108 and Vol.11 

 P. 269—272, respectively. 



2) H. Rink. The Eskimo tribes. Meddelelser om Grønland. Vol. XI. P. 11. 



^) See the author's observations on this head in Meddelelser om Grøn- 

 land. Vol. XXVII. P. 141. 



