1885.] Notes on the Labrador Eskimo, etc. 553 
we may quote a few authorities. Miller, in 1754, says they were 
despised by the rich and deemed only the proper food for the 
meaner sort of persons. Mawe and Abercrombie, 1778, give 
caution as to their deleterious properties unless thoroughly well 
cooked. In 1830, in Watson’s Annals of Philadelphia, it is writ- 
ten that a gentleman, “now in his goth year, told me that the 
potatoes used in his early life were very inferior to the present. 
They were called Spanish potatoes, and were very sharp and 
pungent in the throat and smell. They send occasionally a bet- 
ter sort from Liverpool.” In 1698 potatoes were scarce, Jerusa- 
lem artichokes abundant, in French markets. 
Were a new root equal in edible quality to our snowflake 
potato and of the same ease of culture, now introduced, who can 
doubt its quick recognition and adoption? It would not be 
compared to the parsnip or carrot, as Hawkins did his potato, but 
would be described in glowing terms. We would not have its 
medicinal qualities under discussion, but would be satisfied to 
have it on our tables. If, however, we should now eat some of 
our poorer qualities of potato, such as were commonly grown for 
cattle a quarter of a century ago, we would see in the soggy and 
hard condition a root which might well have excited the admira- 
tion of Hawkins, and which would have suggested the parsnip 
or the carrot for comparison more than would a sweet potato. 
(To be continued.) 
10: 
NOTES ON THE LABRADOR ESKIMO AND THEIR 
FORMER RANGE SOUTHWARD. 
BY A. S. PACKARD, 
(Continued from p. 481, May number.) 
To stone structures, particularly the grave or dolmen-like 
burial places referred to by the Moravians, are of course mat- 
ters of very great interest. In connection with that statement we 
would draw attention to the following extract from “The three 
voyages of Martin Frobisher,” second voyage, 1577, Hakluyt 
Society, London, 1867, p. 136: 
“In one of the small islands here [near Lecester’s Iland in 
Beares sound] we founde a tombe, wherein the bones of a dead 
man lay together, and our savage being with us and demanded 
(by signes) whether his countryman had not slain this man and eat 
