a. The distribution of the western Eskimo traits and measurements does not indicate any important heterogeneous mixture.
b. The groups most distant from the Indians, such as the St. Lawrence or Diomede islanders and the Asiatic Eskimo, show very nearly the same somatological characteristics as the rest of the southwestern and midwestern groups.
c. Among the western Eskimo there are no data, no traditions, and no linguistic or cultural evidence of any considerable Indian admixture.
d. The western contingents of the family do not represent a physical resultant or means of the more narrow and long-headed type with the neighboring Indians of Alaska (or elsewhere in the north), but they equal or even exceed the Indians in the principal features of the skull, face, and in other particulars.
14. The nearest physical relatives of the Eskimo are evidently some of the Chukchi, with probably some other north Asiatic groups; their nearest basic relatives in general are, according to many indications, the American Indians. The two families, Indian and Eskimo, appear much, it may be repeated, like the thumb and fingers of one and the same hand, the hand being the large, original palaeo-Asiatic source of both. But the Eskimo are evidently a younger, smaller and still a more uniform member; which speaks strongly for their later origin, migration and internal differentiation.
15. With his numbers, purity of blood, approachability, present facilities of language, many of the young speaking good English, and other favorable conditions, the Eskimo offers to anthropology one of its best opportunities for a thorough study of an important human group, adapted to highly exceptional natural conditions. His food, mode of life, the climate, and isolation, give promise of interesting conditions of the internal organs, perhaps even blood, and of physiological as well as chemical and pathological peculiarities. This opportunity, together with the excellent and important opportunities for archeology in the Bering Sea and neighboring regions, should be utilized to the possible limit within the present generation, for the western Eskimo, on one hand, is rapidly becoming civilized, changing his food, clothing, housing, and habits; is also becoming more mixed with whites; and is most assiduously exploiting the archeological sites in his region for the sake of the income that comes to him from the ever-rising demand for beads, etc., and from "fossil" ivory.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Abbes, H. Die Eskimos des Cumberland-Sundes. Globus, XLVI, 198-201, 213-218, Braunschweig, 1884.