572 Limit of the Innitit Tribes on the Alaska Coast. [July, 



islands; the only equivalent being the drift wood collected along 

 the beaches and promontories, but this kind of material, water- 

 logged and sodden, was entirely unfit for the manufacture of 

 wooden canoes, or even for the construction of rafts, by which 

 means Mr. Dall supposes the early Aleuts advanced from island 

 to island. The frequency of gales, the violence of currents and 

 the width of channels between these islands would also prevent 

 the use of rafts as means of transportation and traffic. The as- 

 sumption that the earliest inhabitants of the Aleutian islands were 

 without a kaiak or boat of some kind, is based upon researches 

 in the shell heaps of abandoned village sites on those islands; 

 but a kaiak with a whalebone or even a wooden frame without its 

 modern ornaments of ivory and bone, contained no material that 

 would withstand decay and final absorption. The skin covering 

 when worn out and unfit for use as such, was, no doubt, then as 

 now, cut up into straps and patches, or served as food in time of 

 famine, while the frame could be utilized in many ways that 

 would leave no trace behind. The mere absence from the lower 

 strata of shell heaps of anything pointing to the existence of the 

 kaiak, can scarcely be considered as proof conclusive of its non- 

 existence. My personal observations have led me to believe that 

 the remains of former villages and dwellings found on the Aleu- 

 tian islands and on the continental coast of Alaska, are not of the 

 antiquity ascribed to them. Wherever I had the opportunity to 

 observe such localities at long intervals of time, I was astonished 

 at the rapidity with which nature extinguished the traces of man 

 by a growth of sphagnum and other vegetation, giving to the site 

 of the village abandoned but a few years, every appearance of 

 great antiquity. 



The absence of stone and bone implements of more delicate 

 construction from the lower strata of the shell heaps can easily be 

 attributed to the same cause that explains the absence o( iron 

 implements from the upper layers that must have accumulated 

 within historic times. Such articles were the product of much 

 labor, and consequently too precious to be lost. At every suc- 

 cessive removal from one dwelling place to another all such pro- 

 ducts of their ingenuity were carefully collected and removed by 

 the ancient Aleuts, just as it is done now with regard to iron by 

 the natives of the present day. 



On these treeless isles the removal from one hunting or 



