86 
eastern Arctic worked singly, or perhaps two or three together. 
They used undressed boulders only, such as lay ready to their hands; 
and they laid them one on top of another without mortar, as does 
the farmer who builds a stone fence around his meadow. This crude 
method of construction did not permit them to utilize even their 
knowledge of the dome, so conspicuously displayed in their snow 
liuts; or to erect dwellings of larger size than could be spanned by 
the rib of a whale, or by the short logs of driftwood that occasionally 
floated up on their shores.^ 
Encampments or village sites naturally lay close to supplies of 
fuel and fresh water. Canada is ]}re-eminently a land of lakes and 
I'ivers, so that the problem of water supply was seldom serious. 
Neither did fuel present any difficulties in the forested areas which 
comprise more than half the country; but on the treeless ]U’airies 
the Indians often resorted to buffalo chips during the summei’ 
months, and spent the winter in groves on the outskirts of the jilains.- 
Other factors that determined the choice of sites were the facilities 
for fishing or foi’ gathering shell-fish, the abundance of game in the 
vicinity, the j^roximity of a hill or dominant point (like a prom- 
ontory on a waterway) from which to scour the landscape, shelter 
from the prevailing cold winds, security from a sudden attack, the 
character of the soil ami the location in reference to routes of trade 
ami travel. When the Beothuk Indians of Newfoundland moved 
out to the coast during the summer months they preferred to camp 
in small, sheltered bays that had freshwater streams at their heads 
and gravel or sandy beaches that offered good landing-places for 
the birch-bark canoes. In the interior of the island the campsites of 
this extinct tribe a]>pear most numerous at river and lake crossings 
formerly frequented by the caribou, oi' on promontories that afford 
a wide view up and down the lakes. The tribes of eastern Canada 
preferred sandy soil to clay or loam on account of the better drain- 
age. In the Alaritime Provinces one may find I'emains of settlements 
near clam berls, on rivers which the salmon ascended, and at the 
1 The Handbook of .American Indians X'orlh of Mexico, article, “.Architecture’' (Bull. 30, Bur. .Am. 
Eth., Washington, 1907) slates that the aborigines of North America knew neither the off-set span 
of stone nor the key-stone areh. This is not altogether aceuniPi in respect to the Eskimo, for jn 
at least one stone .sinieturc they applied, albeit very erudely, the off-set span (Jenness, D. ; Op. cit.. 
p. 57), anfl the dome of their snow-hut was really a develoiunent of the areh. 
-The Eskimo of the .Arctic, whose homes lay beyond the limit of trees, eombined the fuel prohlejn 
with the food quest, using the train-oil of sea mammals, and the fat of bears and caribou, for both 
heat and light. During the brief season when the snow had me! led from the land they kindled 
open-air fires of heatiier and thvarf v.illow. 
