HISTORY OF THE MUSEUM 
Eskimo 
Collection. 
Peary Relief 
Expedition, 
1895. 
Stefahsson- 
Anderson 
Expedition. 
This Museum stands preeminent among all institutions along the 
lines of ethnological research amid Arctic peoples. The whole culture 
of the Eskimo tribes, with the exception of East Greenland, is repre- 
sented in the collections. Material from the Siberian Eskimo was 
secured by the Jesup North Pacific Expedition; the tribes from the 
northwest coast of Alaska are represented in the Emmons Collection ; 
a collection from the Mackenzie River region was obtained by Mr. An- 
drew J. Stone; Captain George Comer made extensive collections in King 
William Land, the north coast of Hudson Bay, Melville Peninsula, 
Baffin Land at the extreme north end of Fox Channel, and South- 
ampton Island. The Cumberland Sound region of Baffin Land is 
represented in the Mutch Collection. The material from Grant Land, 
EUesmere Land and North Greenland was collected by Commander 
Peary, while Holstensborg and Discoe Islands of¥ the southwest shore 
of Greenland are represented in a collection presented by Mr. G. Fred- 
erick Norton. 
Captain George Comer has been collecting ethnological material 
for the Museum during his extensive whaling cruises. His last ship- 
ment, received in 1908, consisted of 308 specimens which he had 
gathered around Eclipse Sound and Baffin Bay. 
Through Mr. Jesup's relation with the Peary Relief Expedition of 
1895, the Museum received the anthropological material gathered by 
Commander Peary in the Arctic. The collection, which provided mate- 
rial for several groups, contained canoes, sleds, sealskin tents, costumes, 
and implements used in the chase and in the daily life of the Eskimo. 
The material brought back in 1906 was the gift of the Peary Arctic 
Club. The sledge which Mr. Peary had christened the "Morris K. 
Jesup," by the use of which he reached the then farthest north record, 
was received in this collection. 
The Eskimo along the shores of the Beaufort Sea and among the 
islands east of the mouth of the Mackenzie River are being studied by 
Mr. V. Stefdnsson and Dr. R. M. Anderson, who left on a Museum 
expedition in the spring of 1908, to remain in the field for two or three 
years. 
[94] 
