246 THE LABRADOR ESKIMOS AND THEIR FORMER RANGE. 



Although at first disposed to reject such an assump- 

 tion, the examination we have made leads us to look 

 with more favor upon Dr. Abbot's theory, and to think 

 it not improbable that long after the close of the glacial 

 period, i.e., after the ice had disappeared and during the 

 early part of the terrace epoch, when the reindeer and 

 walrus lived as far south as New Jersey, the Eskimos, 

 now considered so primitive a race, possibly the remnants 

 of the Palaeolithic people of Europe, formerly extended 

 as far as a region defined by the edge of the great mo- 

 raine ; and as the climate assumed its present features, 

 moved northward. They were also possibly pushed 

 northward by the Indians, who may have exterminated 

 them from the coast south of the mouth of the St. Law- 

 rence, the race becoming acclimated to the arctic regions. 

 All these hypotheses came up afresh in our mind a few 

 summers ago when we began to collect these notes. Their 

 substantiality became more pronounced after reading the 

 confirmatory remarks made by Professor E. B. Tylor at 

 the Montreal meeting of the British Association. We 

 are not now, however, prepared to adopt the view that 

 the Norsemen did not go as far south as Narragansett 

 Bay, and that the natives they saw were not red Indians, 

 their word " skrellings" being indiscriminately applied to 

 any of the native tribes they saw. 



We do find, however, unexpected confirmation of 

 Professor Tylor's supposition that " Eskimos eight hun- 

 dred years ago, before they had ever found their way to 

 Greenland, were hunting seals on the coast of Newfound- 

 land, and caribou in the forest," for these events did 

 actually happen in Newfoundland, or at least there are 

 traces of Eskimo residence in large numbers at Chateau 



