No. 382.] ANIMALS OF NORTHWESTERN ALASKA. 723 
winds are apt to cause leads to open between the land floe and 
the pack. These leads now continue to open and shut, varying 
in size with the direction and force of the wind, until the land 
floe itself begins to melt and break away, and finally all moves 
off together. Meanwhile the level shore ice has first “ rotted ” 
through in holes, and finally broken up into small floes which 
join in the final moving off. I have dwelt particularly on these 
details of the behavior of the ice, because the habits of the 
marine mammals, and consequently the practices of the Eski- 
mos, are largely governed by the conditions of the ice. 
It may be stated as a general principle that it is the presence 
of the marine mammalia, the seals, walruses, and whales, which 
enables the Eskimos as a race to maintain their existence in 
the barren region which they inhabit. Hence, wherever we 
find Eskimos, we find them making their permanent homes 
along the seacoast, and leaving the shore only for short expedi- 
tions in pursuit of reindeer or musk ox. So far as I know, there 
is but one instance of an Eskimo community —a relatively 
small one — which makes its permanent home at any distance 
from the seacoast, and even these people are obliged to resort 
to the coast every summer to renew their supplies of oil and 
other necessary articles. In different regions, different marine 
animals form the mainstay of the Eskimo’s existence. At Point 
Barrow the animal of primary importance was the smallest of 
the seals, Poca fetida, the rough or ringed seal, the Netyik of 
the Eskimos. Its flesh was the great staple of food, while its 
blubber supplied fuel for the soapstone lamps which lighted and 
warmed the winter houses, and its skin served countless useful 
purposes. Except for the need of some substance of which 
weapons and other implements could be made, like the ivory of 
the walrus or the antlers of the reindeer, more or less helped 
by a supply of driftwood, an Eskimo community would need 
nothing more than this seal to support existence. It was the 
only animal which could be taken at Point Barrow in reasonable 
abundance at all seasons of the year, and a scarcity of seals 
in winter, due to unfavorable weather, was often the cause of 
serious hardship, and not seldom of actual famine. Next in 
importance to the seal was the reindeer. As this animal was 
