Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/400

 being given by using larger shreds. The only disadvantage in using it is, that the nets and lines must be taken from the water and dried frequently to prevent rotting. A stout line is made by cutting a deer-skin in one continuous strip, about one quarter-inch wide. The stoutest line—used in tracking—is made in the same way from walrus-hide.

The river broke up June 3d, and on the 8th five oomiaks left the village. After an interval of two days, five more left, and so on, the country not furnishing enough food for all to go in a body. June 27th the arctic coast was reached. The river proved to be about two hundred and fifty miles in length, and enters the Arctic Ocean about forty miles to the eastward of Point Barrow. While floating this distance, I procured two mammoth-tusks, weighing about one hundred and fifty pounds each, and twelve feet in length. Every spring the river rises and washes away the icy earth forming its banks, thus exposing fresh surface. These tusks are found firmly imbedded in the ice. Three of them were exposed that season.

I was detained on the arctic coast from June 27th to July 16th, waiting for the ice to break up sufficiently to enable us to make our way inside of the heavy ice to Point Barrow. The northern shore of Alaska is extremely shallow and sandy, great sand-spits being shoved up by the ice all along the coast. The beach is covered with drift-wood, which comes from the rivers emptying into Behring Sea. In conclusion, the Indians of Alaska have been reported as savage and treacherous. In my experience, I found the natives of interior northern Alaska the most kind and hospitable people in the world.



IVILIZATION means economical foresight and the gradual subserviency of present selfish interests to the good of others in the future. True civilization begins only, then, when a new potential factor is recognized as worth striving for, to wit, the coming race and its future welfare. Emotionally we revive in our children; economically we sacrifice many of our present gratifications to the development of the race. True educational striving aims beyond the narrow view of the future career of a few beloved ones; it recognizes in the school-bench an economical measure of social security more powerful and efficient than drilled regiments, squads of policemen—yea, than well-organized dispensations of charity. True educational measures, therefore, grow 