The First Landing on Wrangel Island - With Some Remarks on the Northern Inhabitants by Irving C. (Irving Collins) Rosse
page 14 of 47 (29%)
page 14 of 47 (29%)
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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 preƫminently 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 |
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