ing by O. Nordquist.) ]

On the neck of land which connects Irkaipij with the mainland, there
was at the time of our visit a village consisting of sixteen tents.
We saw here also _ruins_, viz. the remains of a large number of old
house-sites, which belonged to a race called _Onkilon_[240] who
formerly inhabited these regions, and some centuries ago were driven
by the Chukches, according to tradition, to some remote islands in
the Polar Sea. At these old house-sites Dr. Almquist and Lieutenant
Nordquist set on foot excavations in order to collect contributions
to the ethnography of this traditional race. The houses appear to
have been built, at least partly, of the bones of the whale, and
half sunk in the earth. The refuse heaps in the neighbourhood
contained bones of several species of the whale, among them the
white whale, and of the seal, walrus, reindeer, bear, dog, fox, and
various kinds of birds. Besides these remains of the produce of the
chase, there were found implements of stone and bone, among which
were stone axes, which, after lying 250 years in the earth, were
still fixed to their handles of wood or bone. Even the thongs with
which the axe had been bound fast to, or _wedged into_, the handle,
were still remaining. The tusks of the walrus[241] had to the former
inhabitants of the place, as to the Chukches of the present, yielded
a material which in many cases may be used with greater advantage
than flint for spear-heads, bird-arrows, fishhooks, ice-axes, &c.
Walrus tusks, more or less worked, accordingly were found in the
excavations in great abundance. The bones of the whale had also been
employed on a great scale, but we did not find any large pieces of
mammoth tusks, an indication that the race was not in any intimate
contact with the inhabitants of the regions to the westward, so rich
in the remains of the mammoth.[242] At many places the old Onkilon
houses were used by the Chukches as stores for blubber; and at
others, excavations had been made in the refuse heaps in search of
walrus tusks. Our researches were regarded by the Chukches with
mistrust. An old man who came, as it were by chance, from the
interior of the country past the place where we worked, remained
there a while, regarding our labours with apparent indifference,
until he convinced himself that from simplicity, or some other
reason unintelligible to him, we avoided touching the blubber-stores,
but instead rooted up in search of old fragm