574 Limit °f the Innuit Tribes on the Alaska Coast. [July, 



height after a single meal. In localities in Prince William sound 

 I had an opportunity to examine the camp sites of sea-otter hun- 

 ters on the coast contiguous to their hunting grounds. Here 

 they live almost exclusively upon echinus, clams and mussels, 

 which are consumed raw in order to avoid building fires and 

 making smoke, and thereby driving the sensitive sea otter from 

 the vicinity. The heaps of refuse created under such circum- 



They will surely mislead the ingenious calculator of the antiqui- 

 ties of shell heaps a thousand years hence. 



On the coast of Cook's inlet I have observed other instances of 

 the rapid transformation of dwelling sites. 



In the year 1869 I erected a substantial log house in the vicin- 

 ity of the village of Chkituk. I visited the spot last summer and 

 discovered nothing but faint lines of the foundation of my house 

 indicated by low ridges overgrown with mosses and grasses, and 

 two young spruce trees growing up from the spot where my fire- 

 place had been located. In the same locality, at the mouth of 

 the Kaknu or Kenai river, the remains of the first log building 

 erected there by the Russians in 1789, can now be seen pro- 

 truding from the almost perpendicular river bank fifteen or twenty 

 feet under the present surface. 



As an instance of the rapidity with which the tides of this 

 region will change outlines of coast and other land marks, I may 

 cite an observation made by me during my stay on Nuchek island 

 last summer. At a short distance from the settlement there was 

 a cave in a rocky cliff situated about three or four feet above high 

 water mark. I visited the place frequently, as it afforded a view 

 over the approaches to the harbor. About the middle of June an 

 eclipse of the moon occurred when it was full or nearly so, caus- 

 ing tidal commotion of unusual extent and violence. When I 

 visited my cave on the day following the eclipse, I found it almost 

 filled with shingles and debris. This cave was situated at about 

 the same height above the water as the cave of Amaknak, fi° m 

 which Mr. Dall extracted such voluminous information as to the 

 antiquity of strata of refuse found therein. I cite these instances 

 only for the purpose of showing that it is not safe to ascribe great 

 age to any and all accumulations of debris found on the c — "* ' 



ska, and also as a support for my theory < 



eneral Innuit 



