ANDERSON RIVER TYPE.

The Anderson River throwing-stick (and we should include the Mackenzie River district) is a very primitive affair in the National Museum, being only a tapering flat stick of hard wood (Fig. 5).  Marks 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 are wanting.  The index-finger cavity is large and eccentric and furnishes a firm hold.  The shaft-groove is a rambling shallow slit, not over half an inch wide.  There is no hook or spur of foreign material inserted for the spear end; but simply an excavation of the hard wood which furnishes an edge to catch a notch in the end of the dart.  Only one specimen has been collected from this area for the National Museum; therefore it is unsafe to make it typical, but the form is so unique that it is well to notice that the throwing-stick in Eskimoland has its simplest form in the center and not in the extremities of its whole area.  It is as yet unsafe to speculate concerning the origin of this implement.  A rude form is as likely to be a degenerate son as to be the relic of a barbaric ancestry.  Among the theories of origin respecting the Eskimo, that which claims for them a more southern habitat long ago is of great force.  If, following retreating ice, they first struck the frozen ocean at the mouth of Mackenzie’s River and then invented the kyak and the throwing-stick, thence we may follow both of these in two directions as they depart from a single source.

POINT BARROW TYPE.

Through the kindness of Mr. John Murdoch, I have examined a number from this locality, all alike, collected in the expedition of Lieutenant Ray, U.S.A. (Fig. 6).  They are all of soft wood, and in general outline they resemble a tall amphora, bisected, or with a slice cut out of the middle longitudinally.  There is a distinct “razor-strop” handle, while in those previously described the handle is scarcely distinct from the body.  Marks 3, 4, 5, and 6 are wanting.  The index-finger hole is very large and eccentric, forming the handle of the “amphora.”  The groove for the harpoon or spear-shaft commences opposite the index-finger cavity as a shallow depression, and deepens gradually to its other extremity, where the hook for the spear-shaft is formed by an ivory peg.  This form is structurally almost the same as the Anderson River type, only it is much better finished.

KOTZEBUE SOUND TYPE.

The Kotzebue Sound type is an elongated truncated pyramid, or obelisk, fluted on all sides (Fig. 7).  The handle is in the spiral shape so frequent in Eskimo skin-scrapers from Norton Sound and vicinity, and exactly fits the thumb and the last three fingers.  Marks 5 and 6 are wanting.  The index cavity is a cul de sac, into which the forefinger is to be hooked when the implement is in use.  Especial attention is called to this characteristic because it occurs here for the first time and will not be