45 



have followed the rivers or the coasts, if they were the original 

 inhabitants of America or if they have come to America later 

 than the Indians. 



The Eskimo language by itself, so far as it is hitherto 

 known, constitutes an independent family of languages. No 

 one has as yet succeeded in finding any language either in 

 Asia or among the American Indians which might possibly have 

 been originally related to it*). We find it spoken between such 

 widely separated points as the east coast of Greenland and the 

 Asiatic side of Bering Strait. The Eskimo live only along the 

 coasts, seldom (as in Alaska) a little ways in toward the interior 

 of the land. Between the two boundary points mentioned, there 

 exists a difference of dialect about equivalent to the diff'erence 

 between two related languages (like English and German). The 

 transitions from dialect to dialect seem to take place on the 

 whole steadily and gradually in the intervening districts ; but it 

 has not yet been possible to undertake a direct comparison 

 between tribes which are more widely separated than that they 

 can visit each other**). 



*) Lucien Adam: En quoi la langue esquimaude diffèie-t-elle gramma- 

 ticalement des autres langues de l'Aménque du Nord? Congr. Internat. 

 Amer. Compte-Rendu, Copenhague 1884, pp. 337, 353. — H. Rink: Om 

 Eskimoernes Herkomst, Aarböger f. nord. Oldkyndighed, 1871, pp. 286 IF. 

 **) As compensation for this, we have the cases where missionaries from 

 Greenland or Labrador have had an opportunity to communicate with 

 more distant Eskimo. The most interesting of these cases is that of 

 J. A. Miertsching, who in the capacity of interpreter accompanied 

 Mac Clure's expedition aboard the "Investigator" in 1850—54, after having 

 spent five years as a missionary in Labrador. So he spoke the language 

 of the Labrador Eskimo. The expedition, as is well known, passed through 

 Bering Strait to the iNorth American archipelago. After having spent three 

 winters there, they deserted the siiip. Miertsching's papers were unfor- 

 tunately lost on this occasion, but after his return home, he wrote a diary 

 after memory (Reise Tagebuch. Gnadau 1856). According to Avhat he here 

 tells us, he spoke with the Eskimo (Kogurmiut) already a little east of 

 Point Barrow (Long. 153° 47'); all that he writes about their language is 

 this: "Die Verschiedenheit des Dialektes hinderte nicht, das wir uns recht 

 gut verstehen konnten" (p. 21). About the Eskimo at Cape Balliurst 



