134 The East Greenlanders. [Feb. 
bitch canoe, still used by the Eskimos of the Upper Kuskokwim, 
is far heavier and more clumsy in the west than in the interme- 
diate regions, and reaches its highest development in Greenland. 
It is, however, to be noted that the kayaks in use along the 
shores of the Arctic Ocean from Bering Strait to Point Barrow 
are far superior to those used by the nearest Eskimos to the east- 
ward of that point, and approach closely in lightness and elegance 
to those of the Cater anuet though essentially different in 
model. 
According to our author, the use of the double-bladed paddle 
among the true Eskimos (excluding the Aleuts) does not begin till 
we reach the mouth of the -Yukon, and is only used when speed 
is specially desired, even as far as Point Barrow, while a single- 
bladed paddle is sometimes used in the kayak as far as the Mac- 
kenzie. Moreover, the art of turning completely over in the 
kayak and righting oneself by means of the paddle is very un- 
usual on the Alaskan coast, and completely developed only in 
Greenland. 
A similar course of development, Dr. Rink believes, may be 
traced in the set of weapons with which the kayak is fitted out. 
He considers the “bird-dart” and “bladder-dart” (the former a 
javelin with a cluster of prongs at the middle of the shaft for 
taking fowls in the water, and the latter designed for catching 
seals, and therefore provided with an inflated bladder to impede 
the motions of the wounded animal) to be developments of the 
arrow, and the large harpoon, with a bladder attached by a line, 
to be a development of the latter, and finds the more primitive 
forms of these weapons more generally used in the south and 
west, while the more highly-developed forms gradually appear as 
we approach Greenland. 
Our extensive collections at the National Museum tend to con- 
firm these conclusions. The larger part of the harpoons from 
the region south of Bering Strait, even those of large size for 
the beluga, are of the type of the “ bladder-dart,” or 
of the still more simple type without a bladder, in which the 
shaft itself is made to act as a drag by attaching the line to it in 
a _ martingale, and these, especially to the southward, are often 
like arrows. Even as far as Point Barrow the only 
projectile weapons used in the kayak are the bird-dart and a 
martincale-dar ” 
