therwise known in the year 1909. There are 210 of
these. At the same time the inhabited houses recollected by informants
for the same towns, as revised by him in his list on page 206, is 192.
Hence the true ratio of reduction is not one-third, or 1 in 3, but 18
in 210, or 1 in 11.7. It is of course possible to _assume_ that 78 pits
were destroyed between 1850 and 1909 so that the total number was 288
instead of 210. Then, if the one-third reduction is applied, the result
is 192 houses. Such an arithmetical exercise constitutes merely arguing
in a circle. On the basis of Waterman's concrete data it would appear
reasonable to make a 10 per cent reduction in those localities where
information concerning number of houses is derived exclusively from
pits remaining long after habitation has ceased.

3. Certain considerations apply to absolute town size apart from the
problem of house number. In Waterman's text descriptions there is no
clear instance of a village inhabited in 1909 which had been settled or
originated after 1850, apart from relocations due to floods or mining.
On the other hand, there are numerous towns which declined or
disappeared during the days of the American invasion and of which the
memory was very hazy in the minds of informants sixty years later. For
instance _hopaw_ had been broken up by smallpox "in the early days."
The village of _rnr_ was being abandoned at the time of the coming of
the whites. The inhabitants of _keperor_ "all died at once" and the
site was deserted. When Waterman saw _otsepor_ the village had only
three house pits, but informants well remembered several families
living there. Waterman felt sure that _srpr_, _espaw_, and _loolego_
had been larger in aboriginal times than informants seemed to think.
The region around Big Lagoon was once much more populous than
Waterman's data would indicate. No one of these instances is in any way
conclusive but their cumulative effect is considerable. It is quite
possible therefore that along the entire northwest coast and the
Klamath basin the population began an abrupt decline coinciding with
the first arrival of permanent white settlers. Such a condition would
be in entire conformity with much of the testimony derived from
informants in 1910.

_YUROK ... 3,100_

TABLE 1

_Analysis of Village Sites_

According to Kroeber, Waterman, and Merriam. Unless otherwise specified,
page numbers refer to Waterman (1920). The column "Status"