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 of driftwood. Natives cross
and recross Bering straits to-day on the ice and in primitive skin
canoes, not unlike Cape Cod dories, which have not been improved in
construction since the days of prehistoric man. Indeed, the primitive