regard to the latter it may be remarked that scarcely anything on board the Corwin excited greater wonder and merriment among the Eskimo than the presence of several persons whom Professor Huxley would classify in his Xanthocroic group because of their fiery red hair.

The structure and arrangement of the hair having lately been proposed as a race characteristic upon which to base an ethnical classification, I took pains to collect various specimens of Innuit hair, which, in conjunction with Dr. Kidder, U. S. N., I examined microscopically and compared with the hair of fair and blue-eyed persons, the hair of negroes, and as a matter of curiosity with the reindeer hair and the hair-like appendage found on the fringy extremity of the baleen plates in the mouth of a "bowhead" whale. Some microphotographs of these objects were made but with indifferent results.

To the man willing and anxious to make more extended research into the matter of race characteristics, I venture to say that a northern experience will afford him ample opportunity for supplementing Mr. Murray's paper on the Ethnological Classification of Vermin; and he may further observe that the Eskimo, whatever may be his religious belief or predilection, apparently observes the prohibitions of the Talmud in regard both to filth and getting rid of noxious entomological specimens that infest his body and habitation.

Whatever modification the bodily structure of the Eskimo may have undergone under the influence of physical and moral causes, when viewed in the light of transcendental anatomy, we find that the mode, plan, or model upon which his animal frame and organs are founded is substantially that of other varieties of men.

Some writers go so far, in speaking of the Eskimo's correspondence, mental and physical, to his surroundings as to mention the seal as his correlative, which, in my opinion, is about as sensible as speaking of the reciprocal relations of a Cincinnati man and a hog. Unlike the seal, which is preëminently an amphibian and a swimmer, the Eskimo has no physical capability of the latter kind, being unable to swim and having the greatest aversion to water except for purposes of navigation. He wins our admiration from the expert management at sea of his little shuttle-shaped canoe, which is a kind of marine bicycle, but I doubt very much the somersaults he is reported to be able to turn in them. In fact, after offering rewards of that all-powerful incentive, tobacco, on numerous occasions, I have been unsuccessful in getting any one of them to attempt the feat, and when told that we had heard of their doing it they smiled rather incredulously. The Eskimo are clearly not successes in a cubistic or saltatorial line, as I have had ample opportunities to observe. They seem to be unable to do the simplest gymnastics, and were filled with the greatest delight and astonishment at some exhibitions we gave them on several occasions. Receiving a challenge to run a foot-race with an Eskimo, I came off easy winner, although I was handicapped by being out of condition at the time; a challenge to throw stones also resulted in the same kind of victory; I shouldered and carried some logs of driftwood that none of them could lift, and on another occasion the captain and I demonstrated the physical superiority of the Anglo-Saxon by throwing a walrus lance several lengths farther than any of the Eskimo who had provoked the competition. As a rule they are deficient in biceps, and have not the well-developed muscles of athletic white men. The best muscular development I saw was among the natives of Saint Lawrence island, who, by the way, showed me a spot in a village where they practiced athletic sports, one of these diversions being lifting and "putting" heavy stones, and I have frankly to acknowledge that a young Eskimo got the better of me in a competition of this kind. It is fair to assume that one reason for this physical superiority was the inexorable law of the survival of the fittest, the natives in question being the survivors of a recent prevailing epidemic and famine.

ESKIMO APPETITES.

As far as my experience goes the Eskimo have not the enormous appetites with which they are usually accredited. The Eskimo who accompanied Lieutenant May, of the Nares Expedition, on his sledge journey, is reported to have been a small eater, and the only case of scurvy, by the way; several Eskimo who were employed on board the Corwin as dog-drivers and interpreters were as a rule smaller eaters than our own men, and I have observed on numerous occasions among the Eskimo I have visited, that instead of being great gluttons, they are, on the contrary, moderate eaters. It is, perhaps, the revolting character of their food—rancid oil, a tray of hot seal entrails, a bowl of coagulated blood, for example—that causes overestimation of the quantity eaten. Persons in whom nausea and disgust are awakened at tripe, putrid game, or moldy and maggoty cheese affected by so-called epicures, not to mention the bad oysters which George I. preferred to fresh ones, would doubtless be prejudiced and incorrect observers as to the quantity of food an Eskimo might consume. From some acquaintance with the subject I therefore venture to say that the popular notion regarding the great appetite of the Eskimo is one of the current fallacies. The reported cases were probably exceptional ones, happening in subjects who had been exercising and living on little else than frozen air for perhaps a week. Any vigorous man in the prime of life who has been shooting all day in the sharp, crisp air of the Arctic will be surprised at his gastronomic capabilities; and personal knowledge of some almost incredible instances amongst civilized men might be related, were it not for fear of being accused of transcending the bounds of veracity.

ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT.

There is so much about certain parts of Alaska to remind one of Scotland that we wonder why some of the more southern Eskimo have not the intrepidity and vigor of Scotchmen, since they live under almost the same topographical conditions amid fogs and misty hills. Perhaps if they were fed on oatmeal, and could be made to adopt a few of the Scotch manners and customs, religious and otherwise, they might, after infinite ages of evolution, develop some of the qualities of that excellent race. It is probably not so very many generations ago that our British progenitors were like these original and primitive men as we find them in the vicinity of Bering straits. Here the mind is taken back over centuries, and one is able to study the link of transition between the primitive men of the two continents at the spot where their geographical relations lead us to suspect it. Indeed, the primitive man may be seen just as he was thousands of years ago by visiting the village perched like the eyry of some wild bird about 200 feet up the side of the cliff at East cape, on the Asiatic side of the straits. This bold, rocky cliff, rising sheer from the sea to the height of 2,100 feet, consists of granite, with lava here and there, and the indications point to the overflow of a vast ice sheet from the north, evidences of which are seen in the trend of the ridges on the top, and the form of the narrow peninsula joining the cliff to the mainland. From the summit of the cape the Diomedes, Fairway Rock, and the American coast are so easily seen that the view once taken would dispel any doubts as to the possibility of the aboriginal denizens of America having crossed over from Asia, and it would require no such statement to corroborate the opinion as that of an officer of the Hudson Bay Company, then resident in Ungava bay, who relates that in 1839 an Eskimo family crossed to Labrador from the northern shore of Hudson's straits on a raft