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"Saviksue"
RAS.
Muuralogical Magarine
Aug. isgo
Mexican Meteorites
- Vol. \ -
Flether
" "
" 16 16 30 35 15 x
"
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10
"
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Photograph by Clinedinst, Washington, D.C.
AAAV
EACH CU
and
$
Cape York Ladies visiting Win marie atmoghitateary
3th
our
A-0
A. Operts. 1897
A:operti97.
Eskimo Grief. Our Farewell to Cape York.
Sammolings amout the ship
of plan of the pier,
Measure length of hinher required.
Wire cablee
Plumbagu P
@
e
.
-
D
(ars)
4 - 45' steel rails hearist
2- 2 I 55' X 14"x14" food pitch or
\ - 30' X
14 x12"
i i
\ / 30' X
8.m X12"
11 4
759 1 10
X
12"X12" 12" x12" 1
h
"
40 - 5' X
12" X 2"
plank
is 3 1
X
12"X 2"
10
"I
X
10" X 6"
oak he
Wednesday Sept. 2 94
3. Juim,
\ have given the arder to
step work an the meterite
& get ready to get away.
It is impossible to handle
the mars safely will are
jack, & the least ship or total
mation arve it is an the
bridge mill send it over
board & perhaps damage to
ship. 1fih could he handled
with safety the speed is such
that in would the the
days more to get it to to
main hatch, + \ earnot risk
this delay, The mind has
fallen, the snow is filling
the mater with shush +
humly four hours of sold
milk all to old ice about
would hold us for the num-
ter.
Lee is sick today, + \ Yam
meanly used up from the works
+ experience of the past your frice might
The metionite has heen moved 36'
72
in 72 marking hours.
R
k
O
weight made
yellow fine timbers
i
"I
3
4
a
4
3
her will do)
for Wuchs ( purhaps present him
11 - "Xround screw ruds.
4 - I"X7" " 11
11
2 - 7' X 10" channel irans
200030 pressure 12"+ 14" 7/4 8 round screw
& R R. spikes
Lugs for jack ear.
6 30T, Hydranlic Jacks
Straps + eye halts in ends
of hinbers.
½ dor, eaut dogs.
1/2 "
picks + handles
1/2 n
shouls
3
crowbars
wrench
cruss cart saw
Y augus
handsams filer, & ref
broad axe
has iron
nails
with muts & mashers
11
" h
11
halts
Oval Base No.3 Hariroutal 12" lift
Wt, 234 lhe price net $110 ia, $ 660,-
of A Dudgons circular)
Wedger
clak for nuedger.
A.Operti.1897.
A Funious Snow and Wind Storm
off Matstenhotme Island: August. 22-23° 97
Dech of Hope in the Starm off Walstersholm Islanet of
0
Д
D
D
TRI
Suggestion for Sketch
Section of bridge, rails, &
car,
A. Opert' 5897.
Lient L and mrs Peary. distributing Presents to the Arctic Highlanders.
Suggestion for a shetch
N(1-60
M etearite in half hold of Hope
Shored with 12"X12" wither against
the sides + packed in hallast
"A" S
Full Page
prote Starm under
W
A. Operti
The Hope-with Meteorite.
Under the Lee of
Wolstenholme Island.
metiont Island Cape York-
any 18, 18,1897. Snowng.
getting the Car under.
A.Operti.
The Ahnighito Meterite
1897
- -Val. 9- -
INDEX
Historic Aerolites.
cape Acrolités (Siderites) or
the
"Saviksue"
of
the
Rekimes.
THE "SAVIKSUE"
York Eskimos.
or
METEORIC IRONS (SIDERITES)
Eskimo
Knives
from
the
of
CAPE YORK, NORTH GREENLAND.
or
the
Tescription of the "Savikme" and Site.
R. E. Peary, Civil Engineer, U. S. N.
History, Noten and Speculations.
10-
Resume
of
Points -or
A
2
INDEX
INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
1- Historic Aerolites.
0
-
1- Map of N. America and Greenland showing location of "Saviksue".
2- Ross' Ship beset in Melville Bay (from Hoss' Narrative
2- The Cape York Aerolites (Siderites) or "Saviksue."
a
3-- A. Family of Cape York Eskimos.
The only Eskimo knives in Existence made from the Saviksus
3- Discovery of the "Saviksue" (Great Irons) of the Eskimos.
5- Dragging the "Dog" down the Snow Slope.
4- The Cape York Eskimos.
7-- Hauling the "Dog" across the Bay Ice.
8- Transporting the "Woman" over the Boulders Rollers
5- The only Eskimo Knives made from the "Saviksue".
9- The Ice Ferry Boat.
10-The Kite rammed into the ice to "Saviksue".
6-- Final Procuring of the
11-The "Dog" in Situ.
12-The "Dog" raised slightly
7-- Description of the "Saviksue" and Site.
13-The "Woman" in Situ.
14-Pile 8-- of History, Trap cobbles Notes and Speculations.
15-Head of Saviksoah Bay.
16-The 9- Land Proposed (August) Grouping from the "Saviksus".
17- The Sea (August) Looking from the "Saviksue".
18-Proposed.Cropp sue". of Points of Special Interest. the *Savik*
3
INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
-- O --
1- Map of N. America and Greenland showing location of "Saviksue".
2- Ross' Ship beset in Melville Bay (from Ross' Narrative)
3- A Family of Cape York Eskimos.
4- The only Eskimo Knives in Existence made from the "Saviksue".
5- Dragging the "Dog" down the Snow Slope.
7- Hauling the "Dog" across the Bay Ice.
8- Transporting the "Woman" over the Boulders on Rollers.
9- The Ice Ferry Boat.
10-The Kite rammed into the ice to receive the "Saviksue".
11-The "Dog" in Situ.
12-The "Dog" raised slightly.
13-The "Woman" in Situ.
14-Pile of Trap cobbles about the "Woman".
15-Head of Saviksoah Bay.
16-The Land (August) Looking from the "Saviksue".
17- The Sea (August) Looking from the "Saviksue".
18-Proposed Group Ancient Eskimos getting Iron from the "Savik-
sue".
4
- LOCATION OF AEROLITES -
c
B
A
POLE
6
A
8
a
E
c
S
A
in
from
Líncal
G
/
jev
≈
I
C.Alfred
/
Ernestern
C.Braine
YORK
WITH
Buyoun
/
C
C.Subine
N
Pt
North
N
OFFICE
DEVO
Passage
Melville
PISCO
C.Parry
Sd.
they
STATE
ALESKAN
South
COCKBUR
s
Franklin BA
SERT
ISLAND
Strait
forewall
VICTORIA,POL
Herrnhut
OFFICE
KADIAKI
Sound
Fox
000'₹
Mt.St.Eli
CIRCLE
Mt.
Chann
Bay
1,000
airweath
Clinton Golden
L.
Great
-- Hudson Strait
Chidley
STATE
0
SOUT
Fisher
North Lined
C.Southampton
M
lopedate
I'O
N
0
N
CHA
Athabasea
H
U
D
S
Lake
Wollaston
Indian
B
A
THE
C.Monriefta
#
Reindeer
Grt.Whate
JOHN'S
E
VANCOUVER Juan de Fura
000
C
0
N
Main
Bay,
Battleford
Lake
Ft.Albany
Lake
115
Winnipeg
St.do's
2,000
L.Manitoba
Columbia
Nipigon
I
Portlan
Halifax
POADLE
mnipeg
Abbitibe
rior
Montreal
WHITE
C.Blanoo
BLUE
Bismarck
MOTTAW
Portland
/
Boston
Cod
Paul
1,000
SECURITY
C.Mendocino
R.
I
Buffalo
York
Great
Pitsburk
San Francisco
Brooklyn
F
N
Omah
Bay
Columbus
St
Jose
City
San
Atchison
I
S
Norfolk
City
T
E
C.Hattaras
BERMUDA
Canadian
Nash
Wilmington
San Dier
Gila
Little Rock
harleston
Dallas
Savannah
acksonville
GUADAL
4
UPED
C
ew
Orleans
C.Canaveral
C
Pta.Eugen
San
1,000
SAHAMA
Corpus
Christi
o
OR
G
U
L
F
0
F
ALIJOS ROCKS
Durango
W
Lucas
V
X
C
0
Leon
Tampieo
Guad
NORTH
FGL
AMERICA
H
Zaral
-
Anspal
/
$,000
Comparative
2,000
:
GUATEM go LAW SKIYA THE
4.
MUSTA
MARIO
MAN
e
119
Map Showing Location of "Saviksue".
5
Historic Aerolites.
Historic Aerolites.
There is always a peculiar interëst attaching to those
strange, rare bodies, aerolites, which, issuing out of the infin-
ite abyss of universal space, fall upon the earth with loud deton-
ations, accompanied by flashes or trails of brilliant light.
Legends and records more or less mythical have come down to
us from the earliest days, concerning the arrival of some of these
heavenly visitants; and they have been without exception objects
of veneration, awe, and even worship.
Some of them have played a part in history, and are still in
existence, waighted with striking associations, historical and
religious.
The historians Livy, Plutarch, and Pliny all describe them.
Diogenes of Apollonius mentions a "star of stone" that
"fell all on fire near Aegos Potamos." The fall of the aerolite
made a great impression on the inhabitants of Thrace. It was said
to have been twice the size of an ordinary millstone and made a
whole wagon load by itself. This was about 465 B. C.
In Galatia, Cybele was worshipped in the form of a
"thunder-stone" which had fallen from the sky in Trepe.
At Emesis in Syria, a similar stone was set apart for
the worship of the sun. These two stones were subsequently trans-
7
2
ported to Rome.
The destruction of the enemies of the Jewish people at
Beth-Horon, as told by Joshua (Josh. Ch. 10, v.ll ) was effected
by a shower of meteoric stones.
The sacred shield that fell in the reign of Numa was an
aerolite (siderite).
The sacred black stone, the "Ruby from Heaven", kept as
an object of the greatest veneration in the Kaaba at Mecca is an
aerolite.
There is a legend that this stone is only a part (and the
smaller) of a meteorite which in its fall upon the earth broke
into two pieces. The larger piece was carried away during the
life time of Mohammed himself by a party of his followers who as
the result of a schism moved away from Arabia and crossed Africa.
A skilful Barbary worker carved the sacred stone into an idol, and
it is said to be still in existence among one of the African
tribes near the Great Desert.
The thunderbolt, "hard and glittering" from which the
sword of Antar was fashioned, was an aerolite. (siderite)
The meteoric mass observed by Pallas on the plains of
Siberia, weighed 1540 lbs., and was held in veneration by the Tar-
tars because of its heavenly origin.
In niches in the private chapel of Hamilcar Barca the
great Carthaginian Admiral were deposited sacred "Abaddirs" or
8
3
stones fallen from the moon (meteorites), and in the processions
which in ancient Carthage accompanied sacrifices to Moloch, these
Abaddirs were carried hung in silver filagree slings. "By their
fall these stones signified the planets, the sky, the fire, by
their color the darkness of the night; and by their density the
cohesion of terrestrial things." (Salammbo)
Buddhism also as well as Mohammedanism and the Poly-
theisms of Rome, Greece, and Carthage, had its sacred "heaven
stone", and in India the old Nawabs and Maharajahs were very fond
of wearing a tulwar or a scimetar made from the fine grained iron
of the "Swarga-stone" of "steel which fell from Heaven; for Indra
forged that blade."
the Diana of the Ephesians, the Venus of Cyprus
Almost beyond doubt the Palladium, and all those mystic
stones of the antique temples were aerolites; and those magic and
resistless blades, forged from thunderbolts or fallen from Heaven,
which have been wielded by gods and heroes in the mythologies of
all races, unquestionably have a common origin in some rude blade
rough-forged from the tough, fine-grained iron of an aerolite
(siderite).
The behaviour of a blade of such superlative metal would,
in those primitive days, easily obtain for it a reputation for
supernatural qualities, and this reputation would be tenfold en-
hanced by the heavenly origin of the metal.
9
The Cape York Aerolites (Siderites) or "Saviksue".
The Cape York Aerolites.
There are now to be added to the preceding list two
specimens, the"Saviksue" or Cape York aerolites (siderites) which
from their size, their unusual purity and homogeneousness of compo-
sition, and the extreme northern latitude in which they were found,
easily deserve a place at the head.
More than this these aerolites have human associations, which
increase their interest and value tenfold, for they were apparently
heaven-sent to supply one of the most urgent needs of the most n
northerly tribe of human beings on the globe, a little family of
Arctic aborigenes, numbering but a few more than two hundred souls,
literally ice-imprisoned in the gloomy depths beyond the Arctic
circle.
These huge masses of pure soft iron, sent by special dispen-
sation of Providence to a people so imprisoned and isolated that
only from Heaven itself could they obtain the precious metal, have
enabled that people to pass from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.
It is difficult to decide in this instance which is the most
striking and impressive, the feelings of mystery, awe and aston-
ishment which associate themselves naturally with such bodies:or
the special mission character of these particular aerolites; or the
shrewd intelligence of those rude Hyperboreans which noted that
these stones were different from all the other stones in their
12
frozen land, then discovered the capabilities of the material com-
posing them, and finally devised rude means of availing themselves
of those capabilities. The history of these unique specimens can
not fail to be of interest.
The
On the 9th of August, 1818, Capt. Jno. Ross, R.N.,
imprisoned with his two ships, the Isabella and Alexan-
der, in the Arctic ice-pack off the desolate northern
shore of Melville Bay, some twenty-five or thirty miles
to the eastward of Cape York, was "surprised by the
appearance of several men on the ice
drawn on
Perilous Petration the Isabella Alexander.
rudely fashioned sledges by dogs, which they continued
to drive backwards and forwards with wonderful
rapidity."*
After a great deal of manœuvring, for a detailed
account of which see Ross's original narrative of his
voyage, communication was established with these
individuals of a hitherto unknown tribe of Hyper-
boreans, and they were induced to come on board the
ships.
Among the scanty possessions of these natives were
crude bone knives with cutting edges of iron. The
discovery of this metal in the hands of these isolated
aborigines, who had never seen white men before, and
had no idea of the existence of human beings beyond
their own tribe, naturally excited comment. It was
supposed that the metal had been obtained from some
fragments of wreckage, and Ross's armourer thought
the
the knives were made from pieces of iron hoop or flat-
tened nails. A little later, however, it was understood
from the natives that the iron was procured from a
mountain near the shore, and that they cut off it with
* Voyage of Discovery, &c., &c., by Jno. Ross, Capt. R.N., London, 1819-
4to, page 80.
Print from Ross' Narrative Illustration.
a sharp stone the pieces from which the blades of their
knives were made.
The further references to this metal I give in Ross's
own words:
" He (a native) was now interrogated respecting the iron with which his knife
was edged, and informed us that it was found in the mountain before mentioned;
that it was in several large masses, of which one in particular, which was harder
than the rest, was a part of the mountain; that the others were in large pieces
above ground, and not of so hard a nature; that they cut it off with a hard
stone, and then beat it flat into pieces of the size of a sixpence, but of an oval
shape.
the place where this metal was found, which is called Sowal-
lick, was at least twenty-five miles distant
(Ross's Narrative, p. 104).
Ross endeavored by the promise of large rewards to
have the natives bring him specimens of this iron, but
without success. He did, however, obtain a specimen
of the stone which the natives used for the purpose of
cutting off the iron from the rock. This stone ap-
peared to be a basalt and was obtained from Inmallick,
a headland to the northward (Ross's Narrative, p. 112).
Of the metal Ross says:
" The most important mineral production of this country is the iron already
described, which is found only at Sowallick or the Iron Mountains. The circum-
stances attending this have already been described; and it is now only necessary
to add that it has been examined by Dr. Wollaston and found to contain nickel;
and that it is probably of meteoric origin, since all the masses hitherto found in
different places, which are equally attributed to this, are distinguished by that
peculiarity" (Ross's Narrative, pp. II7-II8).
Captain Sabine who accompanied Ross wrote of the matter
as follows:
XLI.-Notes on Meteoric Iron used by the Esquimaux of the Arctic Highlands.
By Captain (now General Sir) Edward Sabine, R.A., F.R.S., &c., &c. 1819.
I. " Quarterly Journal of Literature, Science, etc.," 1819, vol. vi., p. 369,
and " Geological Magazine," vol. ix., p. 74, 1872.
The northern Esquimaux, lately visited by Captain Ross (in August, 1818),
were observed to employ a variety of implements of iron ; and upon inquiry
being made concerning its source by Captain Sabine, he ascertained that it was
procured from the mountains about 30 miles from the coast. The natives de-
scribed the existence of two large masses containing it. The one was represented
as being nearly pure iron, and they had been unable to do more than detach
small fragments of it. The other, they say, was a stone, of which they could
break fragments, which contain small globules of iron, and which they hammered
out between two stones, and thus formed them into flat pieces about the size of
half a sixpence, and which, let into a bone handle, side by side, form the edges of
their knives. It immediately occurred to Captain Sabine that this might be
meteoric iron ; but the subject was not further attended to till specimens of the
knives reached Sir Joseph Banks, by whose desire Mr. Brande examined the iron,
and he found in it more than 3 per cent. of nickel. This, with uncommon appear-
ance of the metal, which was perfectly free from rust, and had the peculiar sil-
very whiteness of meteoric iron, puts the source of the specimens alluded to out
of all doubt. The one mass is probably entirely iron, and too hard and intract-
able for further management ; the other appears to be a meteoric stone containing
pieces of iron, which they had succeeded in removing and extending upon a stone
anvil."
2. Extract from " An Account of the Esquimaux who inhabit the West Coast
of Greenland above the Lat. 76." By Capt. Edward Sabine, R.A., F.R.S., F.L.S.
" Quarterly Journal of Literature, Science, etc.," vol. vii., 1819, pp. 72-94.
See also the Geological Magazine," vol. ix., 1872, pp. 73-74.
" Each of the Esquimaux who visited us on the 10th of August (1818), and I
believe each of the others whom we after saw, had a rude instrument answering
the purpose of a knife. The handle is of bone, from IO to I2 inches long,
shaped like the handle of a clasped knife ; in a groove which is run along the
edge are inserted several bits of flattened iron, in number from three to seven in
different knives, and occupying generally half the length. No contrivance was
applied to fasten any of these pieces to the handle, except the one at the point,
which was generally two-edged and was rudely riveted. In answer to our in-
quiries from whence they obtained the iron, it was at first understood that they
had found it on the shore and it was supposed to be the hooping of casks,
which might have been accidentally drifted on the land. We were surprised,
however, in observing the facility with which they were induced to part with their
knives it is true, indeed, that they received far better instruments in exchange,
but they did not appear to attach that value which we should have expected to
iron so accidentally procured. This produced some discussion in the gun-room,
when it appeared that some of the officers who had been present in the cabin
when the Esquimaux were questioned were not satisfied that Zaccheus' ('Sach-
euse,' of Captain Ross's Narrative, 1819) interpretation had been rightly under-
stood he was accordingly sent for afresh, and told that it was desired to know
what had been said about the iron of the knives (one of which was on the table),
and he was left to tell his story without interruption or help. He said it was not
English or Danish, but Esquimaux iron; that it was got from two large stones on
a hill near a part of the coast which we had lately passed, and which was now in
sight; the stones were very hard that small pieces were knocked off from them,
and beaten flat between other stones. He repeated this account two or three
times, SO that no doubt remained of his meaning. In reply to other questions,
we gathered from him that he had never heard of such stones in South Greenland;
that the Esquimaux had said they knew of no others but these two; that the iron
breaks off from the stone just in the state we saw it, and was beaten flat without
being heated. Our subsequent visitors confirmed the above account, and added
one curious circumstance-that the stones are not alike, one being altogether
iron, and so hard and difficult to break that their supply is obtained entirely from
the other, which is composed principally of a hard and dark rock; and by break-
ing it they get small pieces of iron out, which they beat as we see them. One of
the men, being asked to describe the size of each of the stones, made a motion
with his hands conveying the impression of a cube of two feet, and added that it
would go through the skylight of the cabin, which was rather larger. The hill
is in about 76° IO' lat., and 64° 3/4' long.; it is called by the natives Sowilic,'
derived from 'sowic,' the name for iron amongst these people, as well as amongst
the South-Greenlander (sic). Zaccheus told me this word originally signified a
hard black stone, of which the Esquimaux made knives before the Danes intro-
duced iron amongst them; and that iron received the same name for being used
for the same purpose. I suppose that the Northern Esquimaux have applied it
in a similar manner to the iron which they have thus accidentally found.
We are informed in the account of Captain Cook's Third Voyage that the
inhabitants of Norton Sound, which is in the immediate neighborhood of Behr-
ing's Straits, call the iron which they procure from Russians shawic,' which is
evidently the same word. The peculiar colour of these pieces of iron, their soft-
ness and freedom from rust, strengthened the probability that they were of
meteoric origin, which has since been proved by analysis."
16
In the 40's the King of Denmark made an attempt to
obtain these aerolites and authorized an expedition for that
purpose, but nothing came of the effort.
The officers of the "North Star" one of the Franklin
Search ships which passed the winter of 49-50 in Wolstenholme
Sound north of Cape York, were unsuccessful in finding the ae-
rolites, and the same may be said of the various expeditions,
English and American, and the whalers, which visited these waters
during the fifty years following Ross' voyage. None of these
came any nearer than Ross himself to a solution of the mystery.
The Capa 1883 Eskimos.
Baron Nordenskjold ^ sent his ship to Cape York for the
express puspose of discovering and if possible, bringing away
these valuable specimens, but the ice in Melville Bay did not
permit him to get any whore near the locality, and he too returne
ed unsuccessful.
From the fact that the existence of these aerolites
was as above noted, learned by an English officer, the British
Museum has been specially interested in them, and one of the
objects of the splendid English Arctic Expedition of 1875 -76
was to discover and secure them, if possible. This expedition
like the others, however, failed in its efforts, and until I
succeeded in the spring of 1894 in finding the aerolites, the
information already noted above comprised the sum total of our
knowledge on this interesting subject.
The Cape York Eskimos.
To Morris K. Jesup,
President American Museum of Natural History,
Dear Sir:- I have investigated the subject
of the Peary Meteorites, as you requested, and find they are
are among the most pronounced Meteorites known, as far as their
structure and nature can determine. Sections were cut from
the two largest and etched portions submittted to three of
the most noted experts on this subject in Europe, Prof. Fletch-
er of the British Museum, Prof. Brizina of Vienna and Prof.
Weinschonk of Munich, Bavaria. Prof. Fletcher has expressed
the opinion that they are as pronounced in character as any
Meteorites in the British Museum. Prof. Brezina has cabled
that "cutting sent is a Montahedral Meteorite". While the
third person is not yet heard from.
Drillings were taken from each of the three irons and
submitted to an expert in Meteorite analysis and the follow-
ing results obtained:
Small mass.
Medium size mass.
Large mass.
Iron
90.9939
91.4689
91.476%
Nickle
8.265
7.775
7.785
Cobalt
0.533
0.533
0.533
Copper
0.016
0.018
0.014
Sulphur
0.019
none
none
Phosphorus
0.172
0.188
0.202
Carbon
0.014
0.020
0.028
None of the specimens show Silicon or Manganese. A trace
of Chronium was found in the outside crust of the largest
specimen.
The above analysis shows all three irons of the
Peary group to be not only decidedly Meteoric in nature and
composition, but quite similar in character, proving they are
parts of the same fall, and were originally one celestial mass.
So the Meteoric nature of the masses can be considered as def-
initely established.
(copy)
23rd of December, 1897.
British Museum (Natural History)
Cromwell Road,
London, S. W.
Dear sir:-
The specimen of Peary iron and the letter have reached me
this morning. I return the specimen herewith.
The character of the etched surface is decisive as regards
the extra-terrestrial origin: no such figures have been shown by
any iron which is not regarded as meteoric, and such figures are
shown by irons which have been actually seen to fall. As regards
other Greenland irons, it has been possible to hold opposite views
as to the origin; about this iron there can be no doubt whatever:
the figures are as distinct as in any I have seen.
I hope that you will eventually send us a slice to put in
our meteorite Collection.
I am, yours faithfully,
(signed) L. Fletcher.
Morris K. Jesup, Esq.,
American Museum of Natural History,
New York, U. S. A.
( Translation)
Munich, December 28, 1897.
Mr. Morris K. Jesup,
New York.
My dear sir:-
Fortunately, I am able to determine with certainty, the
piece of iron which you kindly sent to me for examination. Like
all others, it bears the characteristics of Meteoric origin,
and it is absolutely and without doubt, a meteorite. If one
should wish to doubt this, one might as well question all the
known meteorites of the day which belong to this class of irons,
as their falling have never been observed. The sample you sent
me belongs to the group of the Oktaedriethen irons, and it re-
sembles that of Totura of prehistoric times. I should be pleased
if you will allow me to retain the piece you sent me, and I shall
be pleased to assist you at any time.
Dr. Weinschenk.
L
A Family of Cape York Eskimos.
19
The Cape York Eskimos.
-
0
-
Before giving an account of the incidents connected
with the finding and bringing home of the Cape York aerolites,
a few words regarding the strange people with whose history these
aerolites have been SO intimately associated cannot fail to be of
interest.
Denisons of a little arctis oasis, prisoned on the east
by the savage white slopes and superstitious terrors of the Ser-
miksoah or Great Ice; on the west by the waves of Smith Sound; on
the north by the crystal ramparts of the Humboldt glacier; and on
the south by the stretching miles of the unknown glacier faces of
Melville Bay; they number in all but a few more than two hundred
souls and are at once the smallest, the most northerly and most
unique tribe of human beings upon the earth. Very possibly also
they are the oldest tribe of men upon the western hemisphere.
Many of them of strikingly Mongolian type of countenance;
all of them possessing in a marked degree the oriental character-
istics of mimicry, ingenuity and patience in mechanical duplication;
there seems to be a strong presumption in favor of the theory of
Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical Society that
20
they are a remnant of an ancient Siberian tribe, which in the univer-
sal wars and unrest of the Middle Ages was forced northward off
the coast of northern Asia and wandering to and across unknown
lands in the central polar basin, found their way to the northern
terminus of Greenland and thence down the coast to the region of
Smith Sound. A portion of the tribe may have pressed on still
further down the Greenland coast to Cape Farewell, while still
another may have come southward along the east coast of Greenland
and yet another may have crossed Smith Sound and passing through
the North American archipelago have reached and inhabited the
arctic coast of North America.
Certain it is however, that one portion tarried in the
Whale Sound oasis, and for an unknown length of time has remained
there till the present, neither increasing nor decreasing in num-
bers, but preserving natures balance with the food producing capa-
bilities of the contracted prison.
Their only inter course with members of the human family
outside of their own tribe, has consisted of rare encounters of an
occasional hardy hunter out on an extended bear hunt, with the
natives of the west side of Smith Sound, and in more recent
years the occasional visit of a few of their men to the Whalers
detained in the ice near Cape York or the rare wintering of some
21
exploring expedition among them.
Absolutely wanting in every one of the thousand and
one commonest and most necessary ( as it seems to us) adjuncts of
men
life; living the life of a carnivorous animal, they are yet real X and
women of a, by no means to be despised, grade of intelligence.
They may be summed up, as a community of children in
their simplicity, honesty, cheerfulness, hospitality and happy
freedam from all care; of animals in their surroundings, their
food and their habits; of iron men in their utter disregard of hun-
ger, cold and fatigue; of beings of more than ordinary intelligence
as evidenced in the construction and use of their implèments of
the chase and their ingenious concentration of every one of the few
possibilities of the frozen prison which is their home, upon the
two great problems of their existenze; something to eat and same-
thing to wear.
22
Discovery of the "Saviksue" (Great Irons) of the Eskimos.
23
Discovery of the "Saviksue".
When turning over in my mind the project for my 1891-92
Expedition to Whale Sound, the discovery of the Cape York aerolites
was naturally one of the attractions of this region, and during the
winter at Redcliffe House I obtained from the natives considerable
information in regard to them. I learned that they had been visit-
ed by many of the present generation of the natives, and I promised
one of the young men of the tribe a gun if he would guide me to
them when my party returned soutward.
The lateness of the season, thick weather, and the presence
1892
of much ice when the "Kite" 1 steamed southward past Cape York, render-
ed any delay inadvisable, and the attempt was abandoned for the
time.
Again in 1893-94 the discovery of these aerolites had
its place in the schedule of work which I hoped to accomplish,
and when on the 1st of August, '93, my ship, the "Falcon" dropped
anchor in side of Cape York, after the quèskest passage on record
through Melville Bay (24 hrs. 50 min.) and from the summit of Cape
York itself I saw the coast to the eastward apparently free from
heavy ice, I hesitated for some time before deciding that it was
not advisable to risk any delay to or interference with, the
main object of my expedition by taking the "Falcon" out of her
course.
24
The mishaps to my inland ice party and its enforced re-
turn to head quarters in the latter part of April, 1894, gave me
last, the opportunity to make a special trip for the discovery
of the aerolites; and on Wednesday, May 16th, '94 I left Anniver-
sary Lodge in search of them, accompanied by Lee with my iron run-
ner sledge and ten dogs.
At the Eskimo settlement of Netiulumi on the south side of
Whale Sound I picked up my guide Telikoteenah. This man was thor-
oughly conversant with the region about Cape York, having lived
there several seasons, and professed to be well acquainted with the
location of the"Saviksue" (aerolites) which he said he had seen
repeatedly. He told me that there were three, of varying sizes,
the smallest about the size of a"mikkie" (dog) indicating a dog
curled up, the second considerably larger, and the third again
very much larger than the second. The two were up on the side of
mountain. After much talk and considerable hesitation on his
part he agreed to go with me to Cape York and guide me to the
aerolites. He would take his own sledge and four dogs, and for the
considerations of a knife I obtained from Ahngeenyah, another Eski-
mo, five more fine animals. This gave me sixteen dogs and two
sledges.
Ten days later we had rounded the dark cliffs of Cape York
and were approaching the head of a little bight well into the re-
25
cesses of Melville Bay. On the slope of a mountain near the head
of this bight, according to my guide were to be found the wonderful
iron stones, but it was with serious misgivings on my part that
after fastening our dogs to the ice foot, we began the search.
For several days past it had been showing and my guide had
repeatedly assured me that the objects of our journey would be so
deeply covered that we could not find them. There certainly were
grounds for this fear for all the minor topographical features of
the narrow belt of land which here separates the great interior
snow cap from the frozen chaos of Melville Bay, were hidden under
the excessive precipitation of the past few months, and the extra-
ordinary amount of snow swept in from the Bay by furious south-
easters, and piled in gigantic drifts upon the land.
After passing some five hundred yards up a narrow valley,
Telikoteenah stopped and began probing in the snow with his whip
handle. Then a bit of blue trap rock projecting above the snow,
caught his eye. Kicking aside the snow he exposed more pieceses
and told me this was the top of the pile of stones used by his an-
cestors in pounding fragments from the aerolites. He then indicat-
of the larger
ed a spot four or five feet distant as the location of the long-
sought aerolites. Returning to the sledge for the saw knife, he
began excavating the snow and at last, after digging a pit some
three feet deep and five feet in diameter, at 5:30 A. M., Sunday,
May 27, 1894, the great brown heaven born mass, rudely awakened
fram its winter sleep, found for the first time in its cycles of
the
existence with eyes of a white man gazing upon it. I had found at
last the object which had baffled more or less energetic and con-
tinuous efforts for seventy-six years. In addition to its thick
blanket of snow the aerolite was completely coated with a half inch
thick covering of ice.
Seen from above it was of an irregular rounded trapezoidal
shape, with a circumference of eleven feet, a maximum length of
four fett and three inches, and a maximum width of three feet and
three inches. The highest part of the stone above ground was
fifteen inches. Its average thickness was apparently one and a
half feet, but was difficult to determine at this season. The
weight was estimated at not less than five thousand, five hundred
pounds and might be double that depending upon the penetration of
the mass into the earth. It was surrounded and partly covered by
numerous fragments of fine grained blue trap rock, portions of wave
worn boulders and cobbles, brought here by the natives on their
sledges from far up the Smith Sound Coast for the purpose of de-
taching flakes of the metal. Al the other rock of the vicinity is
gneissose.
Telikoteenah told me how the ancient knives of his people
used to be made, namely, by inserting several small flattened
pieces of this iron in a bone or ivory back. Then with a piece of
trap lying near he showed me how the flakes of iron were detached
from the aerolite. Nothing could have been more interesting, than
27
than his re-enacting of this ancient practice.
I scratched a rough "P" on the surface of the metal, as an
indisputable proof of my discovery; built a bairn near byith
which I placed a brief record; then after a last look at the
celestial straggler, descended to my sledge, without making any
attempt to get at the smaller aerolite (the dog) which layy a
short distance lower down the slope, beneath the huge drift
that filled the valley.
Some two weeks later I was back again at the Lodge, after
a most arduous journey, much of which had been overland, owing
to the early breaking up of the Smith Sound ice.
In the latter part of August of the same year I at-
tempted in the "Falcon" to penetrate Melville Bay to the site
of the Aerolites, and embark them for the purpose of sending
them home. The summer of'94 however, was an unusually severe
one in this portion of the Arctic regions, and the ice of Mel-
ville Bay did not move out at all, but remained cemented to
the shore throughout the entire season, rendering it impossible
for me to get my ship within thirty or fortM miles of the ae-
rolites.
In December of the same year (the midnight of the Arctic
winter night), I made a second attempt to revisit the aerolites,
but bad weather combined with the darkness to close the ever
inhospitable door of Melville Bay to me, and I was unable to get
28
beyond Cape York where I was storm bound for several days and
then returned to the Lodge, narrowly escaping the loss of my dogs
and sledge by the breaking up of the ice about me while rounding
Cape Parry.
29
The only Eskimo Knives made from the "Saviksue.
31
Discovery of the Only Eskimo Knives in Existence
Made from the Metal of the"Saviksue."
It was during the first moon of the Arctic winter night
of 1894-95 that I made my unsuccessful attempt to reach the
"Saviksue". During the second moon I made a tour of the Eskimo
settlements in Whale Sound for the purpose of purchasing material
for the equipment for my Inland Ice journey the following spring.
Lee was my companion and one night after a long day's ride upon
our sledges over the frozen surface of the sound, we drove our dogs
across the ice foot in front of the village of Netiulumi in Barden
Bay, and turning them over to the care of our Eskimo friends, en-
tered a couple of adjoining igloos (houses) for our night's rest.
In the morning when Lee came in from his igloo to join me in
our simple breakfast of seal meat, biscuit and coffee, he brought
with him a small oodoo or woman's knife which his hostess the
wife of Kyangwah wished to give me in exchange for some
needles. Something peculiar in the shape or make of the imple-
ments caused me to take it in my hand and examine it, and I saw
that the cutting edge was composed of five small fragments of iron
ingeniously set in a groove in the ivory handle.
Sending for the woman I asked her where she got the knife and
she replied, "Saviksuami" sukkennuksue" (it is from the great
iron. (the aerolite) It is very old) Further questioning elicit-
ed the information that in the autumn while she was re-building
32
one of the old igloos at Netiulumi that her husband had selected
for their winter residence, she found this knife buried in the int
erior. She herself had never had seen one like it before, but the
old men of the tribe had told her that it was one of those made
from the "Saviksue" and used by their women of generations pasted.
Pleased with my prize I gave the woman all the needles I had
left, an entire paper, which unbounded wealth immediately raised
her to the proud position of millionaire among her less fortunate
sisters.
The knife thus obtained is
inches in height with a
cutting edge
inches in length formed of five fragments of the
three
meteoric iron. The handle is composed of two pieces of bone and
the entire implement is of a size to make it seem almost a toy.
Yet small and crude as it is compared with the steel knives which
I have distributed among the tribe during the past five years, it
over the fragments of flint
still must have been a great improvement 1 which previous to the
utilization of the metal of the aerolites, formed the only cutting
implements of these people.
Diligent inquiry of nearly every member of the trive since
has demonstrated not only that there is no other knife like it in
the tribe, but that this is the only one ever seen by any of the
tribe with the exception of one or two of the oldest men.
In March of 1895 while packing various specimens at my
33
winter house previous to starting upon the Inland Ice trip, I
MO
came across some relics of the ancient people of this region
discovered by one of the men of the present generation, while
TO
digging in an old igloo at Kangerdlooksoah, and brought by him to
Do
me.
1
There was a lance head of bone, bone the bone point of a harpoon,
a bone scraper, and a peculiar piece of bone some three or four
inches in length with a groove extending along a portion of one
side. It at once occurred to me that this was the handle of an-
other of these ancient knives, and in order, if possible, to deter-
mine the matter absolutely, I called in one of the old men then
visiting at my head quarters, and spreading the various articles
out upon the table told him I wished to know what they were.
Pointing to each one in turn he explained to me what they were,
and the peculiar shaped piece of bone was identified by him as the
handle of a man's knife the cutting edge of which had been com-
posed of fragments from the aerolites.
The length of the groove was only
inches and it would
seem that this knife must have long antedated those which Ross
saw in 1818, as the cutting edge of one which he figures is much
longer. Probably as the result of long experience the natives
had at the time of his visit become more expert in working the
iron and could detach larger flakes from the parent mass.
34
This knife, like the other one already described, is the only one
of the kind known to any of the tribe; and as the only ones ever
taken from this region were those obtained by Ross in 1818 which
have since disappeared; the two specimens here described and
figured are probably and perhaps unquestionably the only ones in
existence.
Note about M useurren speciments
35
Final Procuring of the "Saviksue. =
- Dragging the "Dog" over the Rocks.
37
Final Procuring of the "Saviksue".
In spite of previous unsuccessful attempts to revisit
the aerolites the effort was not given up, and finally late in
August, 1895, I rounded Cape York in the steamer "Kite" which had
been sent by Mrs. Peary to bring me and my two companions home,
and finding Melville Bay comparatively free from ice, every possi-
ble pound of steam was crowded on and the "Kite" pushed eastward
at her utmost spped in order to reach the vicinity of the aerol
lites before a change of wind should shut the door in my face.
As we penetrated mile after mile into the icy fastnesses of
Melville Bay without finding our progress barred by ice, my hopes
began to rise, only to be dashed again when we entered "Saviksoah
Bay" and saw the previous winter's ice stretching entirely across
it. It looked as if even after getting thus far I was yet to be
stopped several miles away from the objects of my visit. From
the masthead, however, a narrow lead of open water was detected
penetrating into the Bay, and following this lead to its end then
ramming the "Kite" her length into the edge of the floe, the ice
hooks were put out and the ship made fast a mile from the shore.
No sooner was this done than with two companions each armed
with a boat hook to assist in crossing the leads and pools of
water which interrupted the surface of the ice in every direction
I climbed over the side of the "Kite", crossed the ice, reached
the ice foot at the head of the Bay, Bay and, passing up the little
valley, stood once more beside the great Heaven-born mass, from
Crossing
A.Operti.
Davis Straits.
The Hope's how.
" Theusual Thing!
stove in .
A. Operti 7897
Crassing Davis Straits
The Car-boisting an to the railway.
C
A.Operti.
Brother Sirt Peary.
Brother A. Operti. Brother Capt. Bartlett.
S.S. Hope-
iceturgs.
KU
Eskimos
D
[17]
THIN
I
stool KANE XX leo
Or
A.Operti.
The Master Masons: and Meteorite.
Brother Figgins 3 Pairs of ASHLERS (Native rock.) Brother Hunter.
COPY.
Dr. E. A. Wanschenk, einschengh
December 11, 1897.
Mineralogosches Institut,
Munich, Bavaria.
Dear Sir:
As conflicting views are likely to be presented re-
garding the meteoric nature of the Iron masses brought from
Greenland by Lieut. Peary, during 1895 and 1897, I have taken
the liberty of soliciting an expression of your valuable opinion
The two smaller masses are in this Museum, and were brought
home in 1895. The larger specimen, better distinguished by
Lieut. Peary as the "Great Cape York Meteorite", is at the pres
ent time lying at the Navy Yard at this Port.
My relations with Lieut. Peary are of a personal and most
friendly nature, aside from my intercourse with him as Presi-
dent of this Institution. For these reasons I especially de-
sire that no question may hereafter arise touching the authen-
ticity of these meteorites. A decisive opinion will not only
benefit this Museum, but will, I assure you, be mutually grat-
ifying to Lieut. Peary and myself.
The section which I have sent to you for examination is
cut from the great mass now at the Navy Yard, and I may add
that the markings are similar to those of the section cut from
the larger of the two specimens at the Museum. I have also
included a copy of the analysis of borings made from each of
the three meteorites.
If it is not too great an intrusion upon your valuable
time, I will be much pleased to receive an expression of your
judgment in this matter at your early convenience. I have
sought your opinion in the cause of science and in the knowledge
that it will be appreciated by Lieut. Peary as well as myself.
By my direction the Secretary has mailed you the Annual Re-
port of the Museum for 1896.
Permit me in conclusion to ask that in returning the sec-
tion, you will please cause it to be sent by registered mail,
addressed to myself; the Secretary will promptly refund you the
amount of any expense involved in the transaction, if you will
do me the favor to inform him.
I am, sincerely yours,
(signed) morno President
COPY.
December 11, 1897.
Dr. Aristides Brezina,
Director Naturhist HofMuseum,
Viena, Austria.
Dear Sir:
As conflicting views are likely to be presented rel-
ative to the meteoric nature of the Iron masses brought from
Greenland by Lieut. Peary, during 1895 and 1897, I have taken
the liberty of asking an expression of your valuable opinion.
The two smaller masses are in this Museum, and were brought
home in 1895. The larger specimen, better distinguished by
Lieut. Peary as the "Great Cape York Meteorite", is at the
present time lying at the Navy Yard in this Port.
My relations with Lieut. Peary are of a personal and most
friendly nature, aside from my intercourse with him as Pres-
ident of this Institution. For these reasons I especially
desire that no question may hereafter arise touching the authen-
ticity of these meteorites. A decisive opinion will not only
benefit this Museum, but will, I assure you, be mutually grat-
ifying to Lieut. Peary and myself.
The section which I have sent to you for examination is
cut from the great mass now at the Navy Yard, and I may add
that the markings are similar to those of the section cut from
the larger of the two specimens at the Museum. I have also
included a copy of the analysis of borings made from each of
the three meteorites.
If it is not too great an intrusion upon your valuable
time, I will be much pleased to have an expression of your
judgment in this matter at your early convenience. I have
sought your opinion in the cause of science and in the knowl-
edge that it will be appreciated by Lieut. Peary as well as
myself. By my direction the Secretary has mailed you the An-
nual Report of the Museum for 1896.
Permit me in conclusion to ask that in returning the sec-
tion you will please cause it be sent by registered mail
addressed to myself; the Secretary will promptly refund you
the amount of any expense involved in the transaction, if you
will do me the favor to inform him.
I am, sincerely yours,
President
51
later lje goes out upon the ice and, his powerful arm, no longer
weakened by hunger, but in full vigor, they see him hirl his
harpoon with its tiny glistening point and transfix his seal,
at three times the distance that their stone weapons would drive
home.
With sll the speed of wolfish dogs urged by adder-like
whips, the wonderful news spreads through the tribe, and before
the sun sets for the next long night, the point of every
hunter's harpoon is tipped with bits of the body of the "brown
woman".
-3-
shores of Melville Bay are siderites (metallic meteorites).
One of them is by far the largest known meteorite in the world.
All three, but particularly the two smaller ones, possess a
historical and human interest such as attaches to no others.
They were never seen by, or their location known to any white
man before my discovery of them in May, 1894.
Civil Engineer, U. S. N.
49
rest upon a "brown woman" and there in the bright sunshine had
idly tried to break off a fragment of her with a stone lying
near. He had not succeeded, yet he remembers vividly how when
his hand slipped and struck against the place where he had been
pounding, a sharp edge had cut a deep clean gash in his flesh.
Why should this not do for a harpoon-head? A word to his
faithful wife and slave, and covering the children as best they
cán with the remaining furs, they climb the little valley and
with hands and feet remove the shrouding snow from the "brown
woman". Then with a rough stone he pou ds and digs at a rough
point of her knee. When he tires his wife relieves him. Soon
however, the bitter cold of the fierce wind numbs them. They
are likely to freeze before the tedious work is done.
But though the flame of life burns wavering in the hunter,
his brain spurred by the chance of life is still active. From
his hut he brings a shoulder blade of his last dog, and with
this rude implement carves snow blocks and builds a low hut
over the "brown woman "lap, just large enough for two kneeling
persons. Sheltered now from the cold he and his wife strive
incessantly at the iron. At last a tiny scale flies off. The
man seizes it, draws the edge across his bare finger, and
laughs with joy as it cuts to the bone. But one flake is not
enough. So through the long hours the two toil till another
and another has been loosened.
Then while the woman sleeps exhausted, the man hastily, yet
with all care, fashions his harpoon-head, setting the bits of
us try and picture to ourselves the first use of the iron from
the "Sqviksue".
It is in the late spring of several hundred years ago. One
of the most selfareliant of the Cape York hunters has come with
his family into the depths of Melville Bay on a protracted bear
hunt, and led away by the excitement of the chase he remains
until the sudden breaking up of the ice cuts off his retreat
to the Cape.
Constructing a rough stone shelter (which it so happens is
at the head of the bay where the "brown woman" from heaven and
her dog lie) he covers it with the skins of seals which he cap-
tures, and lives in comfort through the summer, hunting indus-
triously.
With the approach of winter he covers his hut deep with
stones and snow, for although he could now reach Cape York, all
his food, the result of his summer's hunting, is here, and here
he must remain till spring.
All goes well with him through the long dark Arctic night
for
till early in February, when the southern sky at noon shows, a
few hours the twilight of returning day. Then a she bear
prowling along the shore gaunt with the winter's hunger and
accompanied by her two cubs, scents and pounces upon his cache
48
of seal meat. Warned by the cries of his dogs, the hunter at-
tacks the robbers with desperation, but is unable to prevent
their carrying off all his remaining supply of meat, and is
left with a gaping claw slash in his side. Worse than all this
the old bear carries away in her body his only flint harpoon
head. He is left foodless and weaponless. His only chance is
to try and reach Cape York through the darkness and savage
cold.
But now as if Tornarsuk (the evil one) was angered at him,
the devilish storms of the spring equinox set in, and for days
and weeks the world is but an Arctic inferno of blinding snow,
darkness and deadly winds. When at last it clears and the sun
glares coldly over the southward wilderness of bergs, glinting
the frost crystals in the air, and coloring the marble heights
of the Ice Cap yellow, our hunter and his family have eaten
the last morsel of their last dog, and are starbing upon frag-
ments of the skins about their huts. Yet out upon the white
surface of the bay are black spots which he knows are seals.
He attempts to find a stone that he can utilize for a har-
poon-head, but the search is useless. Everything is covered
with the pitiless shroud of snow.
He gives up hope and is crouched in his freezing hut wait-
ing for the end which will come very quickly now to his wife
and babies, when suddenly it flashes through his brain that
the previous summer while bringing a big seal upon his back
across the little isthmus behind his hut, he had sat down to
50
iron along the point of a piece of bone, fits the bone to the
shaft, and with feverish energy starts out upon the ice towards
one of those tantalizing black spots.
When still some distance away he lies down upon the snow
and begins crawling towards the seal in the peculiar fashion
of his race. Now however, weakness begins to tell upon him, an
and before he gets within striking distance, he is obliged to
stop for breath. The seal takes fright and starts for his hole
in the ice. It is a moment of agony for the starving hunter.
The distance of the seal is twice the range at which long ex-
perience has taught him his blunt flint headed harpoon would be
effective. Still, with a desperate effort he hurls his weapon
at the animal. It reaches the mark just as the seal plunges
into the water. The blow is weak, and yet the harpoon, its way
cleft for it by the celestial metal, drives home and the strug-
gling seal is his. Starvation is averted. The heavenly "brown
woman", has given the dusky hunted full measure of sweet life,
his own, his wife's, his children's.
It is not many days after this that he and his family,
once more strong and well fed, start for the great Cape, his
precious harpoon-head suspended by a rawhide thong in his
bosom.
Arriving, his comrades who had given him up for dead,
crowd around him in surprise, which deepens when he draws the
tiny weapon from his bosom and tells them all his story.
Their surprise changes to awe and then to delight when
3
INDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
1- Map of N. America and Greenland showing location of "Saviksue".
2-2-Ross' Ship beset in Melville Bay (From Ross' Narrative)
3- A Family of Cape York Eskimos.
4- The only Eskimo Knives in Existence made from the "Saviksue".
5-5Dragging the "Dog" down the Snow Slope.
7- Hauling the "Dog" across the Bay Ice.
8- Transporting the "Woman" over the Boulders on Rollers.
9- The Ice Ferry Boat.
10- The Kite rammed into the ice to receive the"Saviksue".
11- The "Dog" in Situ.
12- The "Dog" raised slightly.
13- The "Woman" in Situ.
14- Pile of Trap cobbles about the "Woman".
15- Head of Saviksoah Bay.
16- The Land (August) looking from the "Saviksue".
17- The Sea (August) looking from the "Saviksue".
18-Proposed Group Ancient Eskimos getting Iron from the "Saviksue".
- 46-
When, early in the evening of Sept. 11th, the Hope steam-
ed out of Disco Harbor and headed southwestward across the Stra-
its for Cape Walsingham, Baffins Bay was a sea of amber glass
a
and the narrow band of steely yellow sky, against which four
or five berge loomed in inky blackness, lay north and northwest
past the sable face of Blaafjeld. As we cleared the island
a short vitreousswell came heaving down upon us from the north
ward, and fortunately showed us the position of the dangerous
Parry Rock for which we were heading directly, and which was
not seen in the darkness until the breaking sea upon it was
within two ship's lengths. Only the quick starboarding of the
helm cleared us. This rock lying 8 miles W.N.W. ( Mag.) from
Disco Harbor, is one of the most dangerous on the coast, lying
as it does so far out, and being a mere sharp point which in
calm weather or with ice about, is not likely to be noticed
until one's ship is upon it.
Shortly after midnight on report from the mate I went on
deck with the Captain and found the Hope tearing along at full
speed right in the trough of a heavy sea, with jib, foretopmast
staysail, maintopmast and topgallant mast staysails, and spanker
set, and the wind howling through her tense rigging like a
thousand demons. Slowing the engine to half speed, stowing the
gallantstaysail, and bringing the ship's head more into the
wind, eased her very perceptibly, but the wind continued to
- 47 -
gain in fury, and the sea rose with it, black walls of water
plunging down upon us as if the very cliffs of the shore had
broken $ 00 se
About three in the morning a fiercer gust beat the Hope
over till one of the whale boate on the port davits filled, and
as the Hope staggered up again the davits tore loose and boat
and all went overboard. Scarcely had this taken place when a
sea broke out of the darkness upon the weather quarter where
the Captain and myself were clinging to the mizzen rigging.
In an instant we were drenched, beaten down, half suffocated
and stunned, by the resistless weight of water which burst
over the rail, yet clung to the shrouds with all our strength,
As I cleared my eyes and shook myself free from the crashing
cataract of water I heard an inarticulate cry from the man at
the wheel and turning in that direction could just make out
that the bear cage, a heavy box of open plank in which the two
bears were confined, had filled with water, carried away its
lashings, and jammed against the wheel rendering it immovable.
The Hope was falling off broadside to the furious seas The in-
stant instinct of both the Captain and myself was the same, but
the angle of the cabin's skylight was in his way, while I had a
clear road, and throwing myself headlong across the slany deck
hands and shoulder reached the corner of house together. I felt
it quiver undey my impact, another surge with all my strength;
- 48-
it ydelded; and as bears, house, myself, and some tone of water,
went crashing into the lee scuppers, I heard the rattle of the
-
rudder chains and the burr of the wheel as the helmsman with
all the fierceness of desparation whirled the heitm hard-a-lee;
felt the wild heave and staggering plunge of the Hope followed
however by no thundrous plungs of water on deck and a minute
later as I energed from the seathing chaos, clinging to a rope
end I saw the crest of a giant sea, such as the breath of an
Atctic hurricane alone can raise in Davis' Strait hissing away
into the grey green gloom to leeward. Not until I had seen
the bear's house lashed with turn after turn of heavy line did
below
I go, to get on dry clothes.
After this with lifeline stretched along the deck the
man at the wheel lashed to his post, and a preventer line rigged
to keep the wheel from being torn from his grasp by the battering
seas, the Hope rolled dizzily through the remaining hours of
the night till the grey light of dawn began to filter through
the tumult. Time after time the lee dead eyes were under
water, and as the Hope leaned and wavered and hesitated with
her lee rail out of sight, and the boiling tumult to leeward
seathing up to the side of the companionway, it seemed as if
she would never right. Through it all the two bears kept up
a hoarse roaring and frm foreward between the crashing of the
waves, rose the shrill howls of my poor dogs tied in the fore-
- 49-
peak. Suddenly the enginèsr stopped. What was up now! A
hurried inquiry and investigation showed that a rope from the
gear of the lost boat was fouled in the propellor. We
could not spare the propellor now. It was holding our head
to the sea and it must be started at any cost and cut or wear
away the fouled line. "Pull her wide open" down the engind-
room transom and after a few moments delay, to my intense re-
lief there ran from stern to stem a wrenching, grinding tremor
sensible above all the shocks of pounding waves. The pro-
pellor had started, then it stopped, then started again, stop-
ed once morem then in a labored irregular way which however gradually
grew more easy went on uninterruptedly. That menace was past.
As the daylight grew more pronounced till I could see
the length of the ship it showd that everything that had been
left on deck, including the galley, the spare rudder and the
saluting cannon had carried away into the lee scuppers.
Turning from the ship, an infernal of Arctic hellishness, a
tumultuous horde of furious, scurged, bitter cold waves rose
out of the windward greyness and tossed up their heads only to
be lashed dwn by the merciless wind until in savage revenge
they swept down upon the Hopr like Arctic wolves, and poured
over her trembling rail as if to devour her. Crouched behind
the weather rail, with eyes just pupil width above it fascinated
I watched the turmoil. The wind, resistless and sonorous as
- 50
Niagara, roared across the sathing waters almost as tangible as
they. And as in the plunging flood of Niagara, there are coult
less tiny sagittate spurts or jets of greater velocity than the
rest, so in this aerial torrent there were jets which cut the
water as a gravers tol cuts metal, and drove the liquid shavings
in sagittate line. The returning daylight enabled us to see
and meet the waves better, but it added ten fold to the savage-
ness of the scene. Nowhere will such a mad sea be raised in
such an incredibly short time, as when the autumn boreal winds
marshalling in Baffins Bay charge southward, and crowding through
the narrow Davis Strait, hurl every intruder out of the realm of
night, foundering many a majestic berg and driving others foam-
ing like battle ships through the water.
It is the mighty besom $ Kokoyah, the demon of the north
sweeping his domain clear, and closing his realms for the winter
And no where fortunately does the sea subside more quickly
after the wind goes down.
Subsiding almost as rapidly as it had arisen the storm
at noon was greatly moderated, and by evening the sea was an
animated plahe of hammered silver toucher here and there with
the frosting of the white caps; a few stray ice bergs glistened
inkvarious directions like mammoth pearls; the sun was shining
brilliantly and the Hope with lee scuppers to the water, and
the apankerm jib, and double reefed topsails, the leaches of
-23-
earthly power could keep her from capsizing. For perhaps a minute,
(it seemed to me a week) the vibrations continued, then with a
lift and lurch of the stern, they ceased, The danger was past.
The Hope's momentum had carried her over the reef.
From Cape York I steamed away for Cape Sabins, but the
next morning off Wolstemholme Island a furious Arctic gale de-
scended upon the ship, against which she was barely able to fight
her way inch by inch, to safety under the lee of the island,
where for 36 hours she dodged back and forth, a phantom ship, her
decks deep with snow, her spars, sails and rigging crusted with the
frozen crystals; while I, with four of my bravest Eskimos worked
like miners in our timber cage under the meteorite, lowering it
with hydraulic jacks, inch by inch and foot by foot, in order to
get it low enough not to endanger the ship's safety. All this time
the furious wind howled through the Hope's tense rigging, as if
the demon of the Sa-vik-soah were shrieking at us.
The superstitious ones on board were now more firmly
convinced than ever that we should never reach home, and that this
w
THE
7 - 94
- Sledging the "Dog" down the Snow Slope.
39
which a little more than a year before I had removed the deep
covering of the winter's snows.
With the snow now melted away from the aerolite and its sur-
roundings, it was possible to obtain a clear idea of the diffi-
culties incident to transporting the mass to the ship. I was en-
couraged to find the aerolite was not sseriously larger than I
had first estimated it to be, my excavation of the previous year
having determined its maximum dimensions. The continued existence
of a large drift of compacted snow and ice in the little valley
between it and the head of the Bay, was also a valuable point in
our favor. Yet the several hundred feet of distance intervening
between the aerolite and the upper end of this drift, thickly
covered with large gneissose boulders; and the wide lane of open
water separating the ice in the Bay from the shore at the mouth
of the valley, presented difficulties which I could see would re-
quire all our resources to overcome. As it was now nearly mid-
night we returned to the ship.
The next day the large aerolite was lifted out of its bed
with jacks and a rough sledge made for the smaller one which now
that the snow was melted away, we found located about a hundred
feet distant from the other and lower down. On the second day
the large one was blocked up ready for transportation, and the
smaller one rolled upon a rough sledge made of three spruce poles,
and on this dragged by the combined force of the ship's crew and
my native allies over the boulders and down the snowdrift to
- Hauling the "Dog" across the Bay Ice.
the shore; then ferried across the open water upon a cake of ice,
and finally hauled for a distance of about a mile over the surface
of the ice in the Bay to the ship's side, where it was hoisted on
board and deposited in the hold.
On the third day a heavy timber drag was constructed for the
large aerolite upon which it was placed and secured, then slowly
transported upon tron rollers over a rough plank tramway laid
along a rude road bed, which the Eskimos had graded for me by roll-
ing away stones in places, and in others filling them in. In this
way the aerolite was brought to the upper end of the snowdrift.
Then after midnight when the surface of this drift was frozen
firmly, it was moved down to the shore where a huge cake of ice
40 ft. long by 20 ft. wide by 7 ft. thick had been securely
moored to receive it. Upon this novel ferry boat it was floated
across the open water to the bay ice where a dock had been cut to
receive it. Once on the bay ice progress was continued upon roll-
ers running on a plank tramway until within a half a mile from
the ship, when the work was expedited by splicing all spare ropes
together and carrying them out from the ship, using the winch for
tractive power. As soon as the prize was alongside all possible
speed was made in hooking on to it with the ship's tackles and
purchases; but before this could be completed the ice gave way
under the great weight, leaving the aerolite only partially se-
- Transporting the "Woman" over the Boulders on Rollers.
43
cured. Fortunately, however, the lines and chains already fas-
tened tough it were strong enough to hold it, though insufficient
to lift it, and finally, although nearly submerged by the listing
of the "Kite" under the unbalanced load, additional lines were
attached and the aerolite slowly warped up to the rail and swung
inboard Every one breathed a sigh of relief when the sulky
giant was safely deposited in the hold.
wwith the two aerolites safely on board, the "Kite"
proceeded to Cape York and thence to St. John's, Newfoundland, in
safety, though the presence of these unusual masses of iron af-
an
fected our compasses to such, extent, that whenever thick or stormy
weather compelled us for any length of time to depend upon our
dead reckoning, it was found impossible to keep on our course.
From St. Johns, Newfoundland, the aerolites were transported
by steamer to New York, aand thence taken to the American Museum
where they have since remained.
- The Ice Ferry Boat.
-The Kite rammed into the Ice to receive the "Saviksue"
46
Description of the "Saviksue" and Site.
The "Dog" in Situ.
The "Dog" raised slightly.
49
Description of the "Saviksue" and Their Site
The smaller of thettwo aerolites (the "dog") is an ir-
regular ellipsoidally rounded mass with dimensions 27 1/2 in.
by 19 1/2 in. by 10 in.; an estimated bulk of two cubic feet;
and an estimated weight of 1000 lbs.
When found it was lying loosely upon the surface among the
gnéissose rocks of the vicinity, and though the natives tell me
that it has been used but little because it is harder than the
other, it certainly seems to have been pounded sufficiently to de-
stroy nearly or quite all of its original surface.
It was situated 80 ft. above, and 1625 ft. distance from,
high water mark.
The large aerolite (the "woman") has an irregular rounded
trapezoidal shape with a circumference of 11 ft.; a maximum length
of 4 ft, 3 in.; a maximum width of 3 ft. 3 in.; and a maximum
thickness of 2 ft. Its estimated bulk is 12 cub. ft. and its
estimated weight 6000 lbs. It was situated 96 ft. distance from,
and 21 1/2 ft. higher than the small aerolite.
Its entire upper portion has been worked and pounded by the
Es kimos through many generations, until all the original surface
has been removed. A well defined and cont inuous rough burr of
metal like that round the hesd of a stone drill (the result of
the pounding) extends along the original ground line of the mass
The "Woman" in Situ.
is
Parition of the"Waman"
Crest of Pile
Too of Pile
Upper Edge of of Pile
Pile of Trap Cobbles about the "Woman". .
52
and shows clearly how much of it projected from the ground. The
under part preserves the original exterior characteristics of the
aevolite.
This specimen when discovered lay slightly imbedded or per-
haps indented in the coarse material at the bottom of a shallow
saucer-shaped depression, formed partly by the efforts of the na-
tives, and partly by the piling up of the trapt stones brought by
them during many generations for use as hammers.
The circumference of this pile of stones at the base is some
60 yds., and its height from the toe of the down hill slope to the
top is 18 or 20 ft. The contrast between the smooth, rounded
greenish trap cobbles and the rough angular lichen covered gray
gneissose rocks of the vicinity, is very striking. When viewed
from across the valley, one is reminded of the pile of debris us-
ually to be seen at the mouth of a mine shaft.
The surface of both aerolites is dark brown in color
interspersed with greenish pits, and resembles bronze. To the
eye the appearance of the metal seems the same in both, a dense
tough fibrous soft iron or mild steel, with silvery luster and res-
onant as a bell. The homogeneousness of the metal is surprising.
There is apparently not so much as a single grain of any foreign
substance in the entire mass of both aerolites. The metal can be
cut with a knife, and when scraped with knife or file shows a
bright silvery luster. Etching with acid brings out the char-
acteristic Widmanstattian figures, and analyses show the typical
53
aerolitic nickel-steel alloy, the composition being about 92 % of
iron and 8 % of nickel. Similar, however, as the two are in
appearance, I am convinced that there is a pronounced difference
in the amiability of the metal; the larger being the softer. The
statements of the natives are unvarying on this point, and their
statements are borne out by the huge pile of broken trap cob-
bles surrounding the large aerolite, while scarcely a score of
these stones was scattered about the smaller one.
It seems almost certain that both of these masses are
fragments of the same celestial body. If this be so, the differ-
08
ence in hardness on which the Eskimos insist, is probably due to a
process of tempering, variations in which were caused by the dif-
ference in size of the two masses and the resultant differing
0d
temperatures, when at the end of their descent, they plunged into
the snow and ice.
That there are additional specimens unknown to the
natives I doubt, as nothing escapes the Eskimo eye, and in the
ages that this tribe has lived in its contracted Arctic prison,
there is not a stone on shore or mountain side, or summit, that
has not been pressed by the foot of a fur clad hunter, and noted by
his quick eye.
The locality of these aerolites is near the head of one
of the numerous bays which indent the northern shore of that
great icy fastness Melville Bay. This bay terminates in a little
rectangular cove, walled by a series of hills 300 to 600 ft. high.
LOCATION OF, AEROLITES
Head of Saviksoah Bay.
55
This wall is continuous except at the eastern angle of the cove
where a narrow gently sloping valley opens. Proceeding up this
valley for a few hundred yards one finds oneself on the divide of
a narrow isthmus separating the bay already mentioned from a
glacier bay to the eastward; and uniting the mountains which
overhang the head of the bay, with the bold and striking masses
that form its eastern shore and headland. The center of the
isthmus is about 80 ft. above the sea level at its highest
point, and a few yards, north of this divide, on the southern slope
of the mountain, lay the famous "Saviksue".
Standing here the eye roams southward over the broken
ice masses of glacier bay, the favorite haunt of the Polar bear;
eastward across the glacier itself to the ebon faces of the"Black
Twins"two beetling ice-capped cliffs which frown down upon the
glacier; Northward to the boulder strewn slopes of a gneissose
mountain; and westward over the placid surface of "Saviksoah
Bay"which presents a striking contrast to the berg chaos on the
opposite side of the isthmus.
In winter this region is the desolation of Arctic des-
olations, constantly harassed by biting winds, and with every
rock deep buried beneath the snow which throughout the long dark
night, these winds sweep in from the broad expanse of Melville
Bay, piling it in drifts, which in many places are hundreds of
feet deep.
The Land (August) Looking from the "Saviksue",
57
Even in summer, only the directly southward facing slopes of
the mountains are free of snow for a few weeks, while in the val-
leys and on the northward slopes, the drifts remain eternally.
A large portion of the ice and bergs of Melville Bay
pass close along this coast in their slow drift westward toward
the southward Smith Sound current. Consequently the shore is
blockaded with ice during about 11 months of even the most favor-
able years, and the slightest increase in the severity of a season
beyond the normal, results in the coast being completely blockaded
with ice and rendered inaccessible throughout the entire year.
11
2
The Sea (August) Looking from the "Saviksue".
59
History, Notes and Speculations.
60
History, Notes and Speculations.
The authentic history of these interesting aerolites
can be told in a very few words. In 1818 Captain John Ross of the
Royal Navy discovered that the Arttic Coastsiin the vicinity of
Cape York were inhabited by a tribe of previously unknown Eski-
mos. Much to his surprise he found in their possession iron,
which they said they had obtained from great masses forming part
of a mountain in their country. Pieces of this iron taken home
by Captain Ross and analyzed, were found to contain nickel, in-
dicating meteoric origin.
Various unsuccessful attempts to locate this iron were
made, as already noted, during the following seventy-six years, and
the discovery of the Nordenskjold irons at Ovifak, supposed at
first to be meteoric, but subsequently determined to be of terres-
trial origin; gave rise to doubts as to the meteoric origin of
these other more northerly and semi-mythical irons.
In 1894, however, these irons were definitely located and ex-
amined by me, and in 1895 I visited them again in company with a
to
geologist of National reputation and brought them home with me.
Their surroundings and peculiar and unmistakable characteristics,
proved them to be beyond the possibility of a doubt of true mete-
oric origin. Since their arrival in this country they have been,
through the courtesy of the American Museum, on deposit in its
building
61
building. The historical data to be obtained from the natives
in regard to the aerolites is rather scanty. According to them
the "Saviksue" (great irons) have been where I discovered them
HSO
from time inmemorial; but that they were originally an Inuit
Isvor
woman and her dog hurled from the sky by Tornarsuk (the Evil
Spirit). They say that at first the larger aerolite was in shape
like a woman seated and sewing, but that the constant chipping
off of fragments through successive ages, has gradually removed
S to
the upper portion of her body and reduced her size one-half or
SO
one-third. Years age her head became detached and a party of Es-
kimos from Peterahwik or Etah (settlements north of Whale Sound)
attempted to carry it away, actuated probably by the desire to
have a supply of the precious metal more convenient, and save
themselves the long and arduous journey to Cape York and into
Melville Bay, when they needed to replenish their stock of iron.
The head was lashed upon a sledge and the party started for their
home, but when well out from the shore the sea-ice suddenly broke
up with a loud noise, and the head disappeared beneath the water
dragging down with it the sledge and dogs. The Eskimos themselves
narrowly escaped with their lives, and since that time no attempt
has been made to carry away any but the smallest fragments of the
heavenly woman.
This mass is the one from which all the ancient iron
supplye of this people was obtained and the supposed statement
62
btsyer
of the natives to Captain Ross that one mass was composed princi-
pally of a black rock containing iron in the shape of small
nodules imbedded in it, was a mis-interpretation. The hard, dark
rock mentioned by the natives, a piece of which they gave Ross,
S
was a piece of one of the trap cobbles used in hammering off
flakes of the iron, and not a portion of the rocky matrix enclos-
ing the iron. For several generations, probably from the time of
the wintering of the "North Star" or possibly earlier, no use has
been made of the iron of these aerolites by the natves; they prob-
ably obtaining their scant supply of knives from the whalers and
expedition ships visiting their coast or beset in the ice off
Cape York.
Surprise at finding these little Hyperboreans on a par
with the Greeks, the Romans, the Cathaginians, and the devotees
of Buddha, in their possession of a "Heaven-stone" is almost
startling in its intensity; yet surprise gives way to admiration
as we note the shrewdness of these brown hunters of the "Great
Night". The savage stress of natural environment in which the
Creator placed them to struggle for existence, left them no room
for any S uch Platonic mæifestations as worship of the celestial
guests. A Diana of Ephesus or Venus of Cyprus would be utterly
63
useless to them. Nor, on the other hand, would any glittering
blade, irresistible in conflict, appeal to them. Their sole and
ever beseiging enemies were the Demons Hunger and Starvation;
and so, with intense practicalness they pressed the "goods the
gods had sent them" into their servce, in solving the, to them,
fundamental equation of the problem of existence, the effort to
obtain something to eat; and chipped their celestial guests to
point the harpoons that brought them food.
Let us try and picture to ourselves the first use of the
iron from the"saviksue"
.
It is in the late spring of several hundred years ago.
One of the most
self reliant of the Cape York hunters has
gone with his family into the depths of Melville Bay on a protract-
ed bear hunt, and led away by the excitement of the chase he re-
mains until the sudden breaking up of the ice cuts off his retreat
to the Cape.
Constructing a rough stone shelter ( which it so happens
is at the head of the bay where the brown woman" from heaven and her
dog lie) he covers it with the skins of seals which he captures,
and lives in comfort through the summer, hunting industriously.
With the approach of winter he covers his hut deep with
stones and snow, for although he could now reach Cap e York; all his
64
food, the result of his summers hunting, is here, and here he must
remain till spring.
All goes well with him through the long dark arctic
night till early in February, when the southern sky at noon shows
for a few hours the twilight of returning day. Then a she bear
prowling along the shore gaunt with the winters hunger and accom-
panied by her two cubs, scents and pounces upon his cache of seal
meat. Warned by the cries of his doge, the hunter attacks the
robbers with desperation, but is unable to prevent their carrying
off all his remaining supply of meat, and is left with two of his
best dogs dead, and himself with a gaping claw slash in his side.
Worse than all this, the old bear carries àway in her body his only
flint harpoon head. He is left foodless and weaponless. His only
chance is to try and reach Cape York through the darkness and
savage cold.
But now as if Tornarsuk (the evil one) was angered at
him, the devilish storms of the spring equinox set in, and for days
and weeks the world is but an arctic inferno of blinding snow, dark-
ness, and deadly winds. When at last it clears and the sun
glares coldly over the southward wilderness of bergs, glinting the
frost crystals in the air, and coloring the marble heights of the
Ice Cap pale yellow, our hunter and his family have eaten the last
65
morsel of their last dog, and are starving upon fragments of the
skins about their hut. Yet out upon the white surface of the
bay are black spots which he knows are seals.
He attempts to find a stone that he can utilize for a
harpoon-head, but the search is useless. Everything is covered
with the pitiless shroud of snow.
He gives up hope and is crouched in his freezing hut
waitin g for the end which will come very quickly now to his his
wife and babies, when suddenly it flashes through his brain that
the previous summer while bringing a big seal upon his back across
the little isthmus behind his hut, he had sat down to rest upon the
"brown woman" and there in the bright sunshine had idly tried to
break off a fragment of her with a stone lying near. He had not
succeeded. yet he remembers vividly how when his hand slipped and
struck against the place where he had been pounding, a sharp
edge had cut a deep clean gash in his flesh.
Why should this not do for his harpoon-head? A word to
his faithful wife and slave, and covering the children as best they
can with the remaining furs, the y climb the little valley and
with hands and feet remove the shrouding snow from the "brown
woman". Then with a rough stone he pounds and digs at a rough
point of her knee. When he tires his wife relieves him Soon
66
however the bitter cold of the fierce wind numbs them. They are
likely to freeze before the tedious work is done.
But though the flame of life burns wavering in the hunter
his brain spurred by the chance of life is still active. From his
hut he brings a shoulderblade of his last dog, and with this rude
implement carves snow blocks and builds a low hut over the "brown
woman's " lap, just large enough for two kneeling persons. Shelter-
ed now from the cold he and his wife strive incessantly at the
iron. At last a tiny scale flies off. The man seizes it, draws
the edge across his bare finger, and laughs with joy as it cuts to
the bone. But one flake is not enough. So through the long
hours the two toil till another and another has been loosened.
Then while the woman sleeps exhausted, the man hastily
yet with all care, fashions his harpoon-head, setting the bits of
iron along the point of a piece of bone, fits the bone to the
shaft, and with feverish energy starte out upon the ice towards one
of those tantalizing black spots.
When still same distance away he lies down upon the snow
and begins crawling towards the seal in the peculiar fashion of his
race. Now however weakness begins to tell upon him, and before
he gets within striking distance, he is obliged to stop for breath.
The seal takes fright and starts fr his hole in the ice. It is a
moment of agony for the starving hunter. The distance of the seal
67
is twice the range at which long experience has taught him his
blunt flint headed harpoon would be effective. Still, with a des-
perate effort he hurls his weapon at the animal. It reaches the
mark just as the seal plunges into the water. The blow is weak,
and yet the harpoon, its way cleft for it by the celestial metal,
drives home and the struggling seal is his. Starvation is. averted
The heavenly "brown woman" has given the dusky hunter full measure
of sweet life, his own, his wife's, his children's.
It is not many days after this that he and his family,
once more strong and well fed, start for the great Cape, his pre-
cious harpoon-head suspended by a rawhide thong in his bosom.
Arriving, his comrades who had given him up for dead,
crowd aroung him in surprise, which deepens when he draws the
tiny weapon fron his bosom and tell them all his story.
Their surprise changes to awe and then to delight when
later he goes out upon the ice and, with his powerful arm, no longer
weakened by hunger but in full vigor, they see him hurl his harpoon
with its tiny glistening point and transfix his seal, at three
times the distance that their stone weapons would drive home.
With all the speed of wolfish dogs urged by adder like
whips, the wonderful news spreads through the tribe, and before the
sun sets for the next long night, the point of every hunters har-
poon is tipped with bits of the body of the "brown woman".
68
In contemplating these brown masses a host of strange
fancies, speculations and queries crowd upon one. Did man or the
aerolites first arrive in that inhospitable region? If the former,
and the aerolites fell in the long, dark winter night, what terror
the detonations, the blinding glare, and the earthquake shock of
their fall, must have caused among the poor savages cowering in
their shaking stone and turf huts. Would it be strange if they
had thought that the sun itself had broken loose and was falling
upon the earth, and that the earth was breaking up under the shock
like one of their own icebergs.
If the aerolites fell in summer how the seals must have
plunged for the water, and the Polar bears rushed at full speed
49
over the ice floes floes, fear-stricken by the awful cataclysm.
If the arrival of the aerolites antedated that of man,
did they fall but a short time previous to his advent, or thous-
ands of years ago, during the glacial epoch, when this entire re-
gion region was covered by an unbroken ice sheet?
The fact that the two aerolites when discovered were not
buried in the ground, and that there were no indications of crush-
ing of the rocks beneath them or abrasion or indentation of the
undersurfaces of the aerolites themselves; phenomena which must
have accompanied their direct fall upon the ground, would seem to
indicate that they had originally descended upon the surface of
the then much expanded ice sheet, and upon its recession had grad-
ually settled to the positions in which they were found.
On the other hand, one of the enormous snow drifts which
form along this coast even in ordimary winters, might have receiv-
ed the aerolites and cushioned their fall completely, allowing the
presumably high temperature of the masses to effect their gradual
descent and final deposition upon the under-lying rocks.
The existence of the Eskimo legend already noted above
in regard to these aerolites, lends color to the belief that their
arrival was subsequent to that of man; else how could these rude
natives have obtained any idea of their heavenly origin, and why
should not the brown masses have been to them simply "Weeaksue"
(rocks) like all the others in their country, including the soap-
70
stones which have furnished them with material for their lamps
and pots.
Next, and to me most astonishing inexplicable, how did these poor
aborigines discover the qualities of the material composing the
masses, and the uses to which it could be put, and then devise means
of availing themselves of it?
From what I have seen of this people and their exhaustive
knowledge of all the materials to be found in their country, and
the special qualifications of each; I am inclined to think that
these little brown wizards of the north have at one time or anoth-
er during the past centuries, put through the laboratory of common
sense and practical experience, every stone or other material in
the whole range of their observation, and settled for all time the
characteristics, the qualities and capabilities of each; and
where these capabilities could be used for their own benefit, have
devised means for SO utilizing them.
These particular masses have been the ready iron mine of
these northern men, beyond the control of any trust, from which
each chipped his little fragments when a harpoon head, a lance
point or a knife was needed. It has been to them an exhaustless
source of utility; and through the centuries they have hammered
off their little flakes, and gone away rejoicing with the small
splinters from Heaven's foundry thus laboriously secured.
The spectaøle of these little fur-clad children of the
71
ice floes, using centuries ago a heaven invented alloy (nickel
steel) which all our own boasted civilization and enlightenment
has only recently devised, is a striking one.
In looking at these masses too, bewildering thoughts
arise as to their origin. The theory that they are the products
of some furious volcanic eruption past or recent, is negatived by
the character of the alloy (nickel steel) which to the best of our
knowledge exists nowhere in our globe, and because if nickel steel
should be so erupted, why not gold, or silver, or tin, or copper, or
lead?
Are they then the fragments of some ruined or disrupted
other world and, if so, are there other similar worlds or comets
or asteroids or bodies of some sort composed entirely of iron,
still intact and whirling through space? There seems reason for
thinking so in looking at these masses and yet how could the in-
habitants manage with compasses and electrical currents upon a
planet composed of nickel iron? And, to use the words of a funny
writer on an English paper, "What would it be like to rush through
space upon a ferruginous ball with no potato patch or turnip
ground softer than Bessemer steel?"
The theory of Eastman and Miller seems to be more plaus-
ible; that these and similar masses of iron, (the siderites of the
text books were originally nodules scattered through the unoxyi-
dized basic rock core of a shattered planet or planets, and that
when fragments of these hurtling ruins enter the earth's atmos-
72
phere, the instantaneous and inconceivable leap in temperature
shatters the brittle matrix of rock into dust or fragments so
small as to be unheeded, while the tough metallic nodules reach the
earth intact.
The whole subject remains to this moment mysterious,
attractive, romantic and awe-inspiring, beyond all the guesses and
attempted explanations of the wise.
73
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Proposed Group.
75
Proposed Group in Connection with the "Saviksue".
Acrolitos.
The proposed group shown on the opposite page represents
a scene of a hundred years or more ago as described and in part
re-enacted for me by some of the older men of the present gener-
ation.
It is late in July and the midnight sun of the Arctic summer,
which has known no setting since early in May, has shone incess-
antly upon the southward sloping mountian side on which the
Heaven-born brown womanand her dog rest, until it has dissipated
all the snow except the perennial BHOW drift filling the center
of the valley in the foreground, and has raised the temperature
of the woman to the point which the natives know by long exper-
ience will allow them to detach small fragments of the mass with
the least dificulty.
On the left (north) rises the slope of a mountain thickly
strewn with gneissose boulders; to the right (south) rise the
black rocks of another mountain; eastward in the background
flows the groaning current of a great glacier, adding its count-
fleet
less, of bergs to the frightful icy chaos of Melville Bay; be-
yond this rise the sheer black cliffs which confine the glacier,
crested by the eternal ice-capt
76
In the foreground are the aerolites and two families of Eski-
mos that are availing themselves of the opportunity to renew
the cutting edges of their knives and harpoon heads. One family
consisting of the father, mother, grown son and small child, has
taken possession of one of the numerous "kangmah" or small stone
shelters constructed by their long-dead ancestors, and in front
of this the woman is preparing a meal of seal meat which she is
heating in a stone pot over a stone lamp. The child stands near
her eating a piece of the raw meat.
Kneeling beside the aerolite is the young man, with one of the
rounded trap stones grasped in both hands. With this he is en-
gaged in the arduous labor of laminating some small prominence O
of the aerolite by continuous pounding in the same spot, until a
small flake becomes partially separated and can be removed.
The father, seated upon his sledge, which for convenience
has been drawn near the aerolites, is engaged in the skilled
labor of joining and fitting the bits of iron detached by-his
son into the groove of a bone handle to form as continuous a
cutting edge as possible. The dogs of this family, four in
number, are tied to one of themmerous gneissose boulders in
the background.
The second family has just arrived 2 and comprises a man, his
wife, and a baby, carried in the mother's hood. While the man is
untangling the traces of his dogs, three in number, preparatory
77
to tying them to a rock, the woman brings up from the sledge
an armful of the rounded trap stones which they gathered a hun-
dred miles or more up the coast, for use as hammers upon the
"Saviksue". Upon the sledge may be seen in addition to these
stones, the meat of a seal just killed on the bay below, which
will insure an ample supply of food for the entire party during
the several days that they must remain in order to obtain their
meager supply of the precious iron.
It is intended that this group shall be constructed
with absolute fidelity to the original, and that it shall be
composed in every detail of actual material brought from the
original locality.
In addition toethe aerolites themselves, a considerable quan-
tity of the trap stones and lichen covered gneissose boulders
have been brought back, and still more will be obtained.
All the costumes will be the real article taken directly
from the natives, and the figures themselves will be reproduc-
ed from casts made from living individuals in the tribe.
The dogs will be actual teams purchased from the natives and
mounted for this express object, and the two ancient knives
noted above, the only ones in existence made from the iron of
these aerolites, will appear in the group.
The background will be painted from photographs and sketches
OF
E
THE
78
by an artist who has actually visited the locality, and made his
INTITE
studies on the spot for the definite purpose of this proposed
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group.
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Resume of Points of Special Interest.
Resume of Points of Special Interest.
- O -
First and foremost stands the ethnological or human
associations of these aerolites. They have assisted in the
progress of an entire aboriginal tribe, and that tribe not
only the most northerly one upon the earth, but probably the
smallest as well, and to me the most interesting.
Second, is their size. With the exception of the
large Cranbourne sidežite in the British Museum, weighing
some 8000 lbs., the larger of these two aerolites (the
"woman") far exceeds the largest in any of the other great
museums of the world. The gems of the National Museum, the
Paris Museum, the Yale College Museum, and the Field Colum-
bian Museum, weigh respectively 2500 lbs. (estimated); 1709;
1630, and 1013 lbs.; while the largest in the Museums of
Vienna and the University of Bonn, are still smaller.
Third in order comes the fact, that they are literally
and absolutely complete specimens, no individual or museum
possessing the least fragment of either. In this respect
they are unapproachable.
The seizure and utilization of their exceptional fitness
for the central idea of a dramatic yet scientifically
81
accurate group, will result in an unique and imperishable ex-
hibit; impossible of duplication and of such compelling and
incisive interest both scientifica and popular, that it must
per force head every catalogue of famous aerolites, and must
be included in every reference to the chief treasures of great
museums. Such group will be as interesting and instructive as
Cleopatra's Needle; and more valuable because impossible of
duplication.
Additional points of interest are, the extremely high
latitude in which these aerolites were found: the peculiar phy-
sical conditions existing in the locality of their discovery,
the bearing of these conditions upon the de tails of their ar-
rival upon the earth; their wealth of suggestion of questions
and speculations of the most attractive nature to the scientist
the virgin field they present as regards minute scientific
study 1 no exhaustive analyses etc. etc. yet having been made;
and the fact that for seventy-six years they have baffled all
efforts to locate their hiding place, and have finally succumbed
to American persistence.
This combination of charms renders these Cape York
aerolites or "saviksue" peerless and unique among a 11 the
siderites of the world.
V.S. Nany
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"ocrText": "W 7 IT\nMM\n\"Saviksue\"\nRAS.\nMuuralogical Magarine\nAug. isgo\nMexican Meteorites\n- Vol. \\ -\nFlether\n\" \"\n\" 16 16 30 35 15 x\n\"\n\"\n10\n\"\n\"\n\"\n\"\n\"\n\"\n\" as »\nPhotograph by Clinedinst, Washington, D.C.\nAAAV\nEACH CU\nand\n$\nCape York Ladies visiting Win marie atmoghitateary\n3th\nour\nA-0\nA. Operts. 1897\nA:operti97.\nEskimo Grief. Our Farewell to Cape York.\nSammolings amout the ship\nof plan of the pier,\nMeasure length of hinher required.\nWire cablee\nPlumbagu P\n@\ne\n.\n-\nD\n(ars)\n4 - 45' steel rails hearist\n2- 2 I 55' X 14\"x14\" food pitch or\n\\ - 30' X\n14 x12\"\ni i\n\\ / 30' X\n8.m X12\"\n11 4\n759 1 10\nX\n12\"X12\" 12\" x12\" 1\nh\n\"\n40 - 5' X\n12\" X 2\"\nplank\nis 3 1\nX\n12\"X 2\"\n10\n\"I\nX\n10\" X 6\"\noak he\nWednesday Sept. 2 94\n3. Juim,\n\\ have given the arder to\nstep work an the meterite\n& get ready to get away.\nIt is impossible to handle\nthe mars safely will are\njack, & the least ship or total\nmation arve it is an the\nbridge mill send it over\nboard & perhaps damage to\nship. 1fih could he handled\nwith safety the speed is such\nthat in would the the\ndays more to get it to to\nmain hatch, + \\ earnot risk\nthis delay, The mind has\nfallen, the snow is filling\nthe mater with shush +\nhumly four hours of sold\nmilk all to old ice about\nwould hold us for the num-\nter.\nLee is sick today, + \\ Yam\nmeanly used up from the works\n+ experience of the past your frice might\nThe metionite has heen moved 36'\n72\nin 72 marking hours.\nR\nk\nO\nweight made\nyellow fine timbers\ni\n\"I\n3\n4\na\n4\n3\nher will do)\nfor Wuchs ( purhaps present him\n11 - \"Xround screw ruds.\n4 - I\"X7\" \" 11\n11\n2 - 7' X 10\" channel irans\n200030 pressure 12\"+ 14\" 7/4 8 round screw\n& R R. spikes\nLugs for jack ear.\n6 30T, Hydranlic Jacks\nStraps + eye halts in ends\nof hinbers.\n½ dor, eaut dogs.\n1/2 \"\npicks + handles\n1/2 n\nshouls\n3\ncrowbars\nwrench\ncruss cart saw\nY augus\nhandsams filer, & ref\nbroad axe\nhas iron\nnails\nwith muts & mashers\n11\n\" h\n11\nhalts\nOval Base No.3 Hariroutal 12\" lift\nWt, 234 lhe price net $110 ia, $ 660,-\nof A Dudgons circular)\nWedger\nclak for nuedger.\nA.Operti.1897.\nA Funious Snow and Wind Storm\noff Matstenhotme Island: August. 22-23° 97\nDech of Hope in the Starm off Walstersholm Islanet of\n0\nД\nD\nD\nTRI\nSuggestion for Sketch\nSection of bridge, rails, &\ncar,\nA. Opert' 5897.\nLient L and mrs Peary. distributing Presents to the Arctic Highlanders.\nSuggestion for a shetch\nN(1-60\nM etearite in half hold of Hope\nShored with 12\"X12\" wither against\nthe sides + packed in hallast\n\"A\" S\nFull Page\nprote Starm under\nW\nA. Operti\nThe Hope-with Meteorite.\nUnder the Lee of\nWolstenholme Island.\nmetiont Island Cape York-\nany 18, 18,1897. Snowng.\ngetting the Car under.\nA.Operti.\nThe Ahnighito Meterite\n1897\n- -Val. 9- -\nINDEX\nHistoric Aerolites.\ncape Acrolités (Siderites) or\nthe\n\"Saviksue\"\nof\nthe\nRekimes.\nTHE \"SAVIKSUE\"\nYork Eskimos.\nor\nMETEORIC IRONS (SIDERITES)\nEskimo\nKnives\nfrom\nthe\nof\nCAPE YORK, NORTH GREENLAND.\nor\nthe\nTescription of the \"Savikme\" and Site.\nR. E. Peary, Civil Engineer, U. S. N.\nHistory, Noten and Speculations.\n10-\nResume\nof\nPoints -or\nA\n2\nINDEX\nINDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS.\n1- Historic Aerolites.\n0\n-\n1- Map of N. America and Greenland showing location of \"Saviksue\".\n2- Ross' Ship beset in Melville Bay (from Hoss' Narrative\n2- The Cape York Aerolites (Siderites) or \"Saviksue.\"\na\n3-- A. Family of Cape York Eskimos.\nThe only Eskimo knives in Existence made from the Saviksus\n3- Discovery of the \"Saviksue\" (Great Irons) of the Eskimos.\n5- Dragging the \"Dog\" down the Snow Slope.\n4- The Cape York Eskimos.\n7-- Hauling the \"Dog\" across the Bay Ice.\n8- Transporting the \"Woman\" over the Boulders Rollers\n5- The only Eskimo Knives made from the \"Saviksue\".\n9- The Ice Ferry Boat.\n10-The Kite rammed into the ice to \"Saviksue\".\n6-- Final Procuring of the\n11-The \"Dog\" in Situ.\n12-The \"Dog\" raised slightly\n7-- Description of the \"Saviksue\" and Site.\n13-The \"Woman\" in Situ.\n14-Pile 8-- of History, Trap cobbles Notes and Speculations.\n15-Head of Saviksoah Bay.\n16-The 9- Land Proposed (August) Grouping from the \"Saviksus\".\n17- The Sea (August) Looking from the \"Saviksue\".\n18-Proposed.Cropp sue\". of Points of Special Interest. the *Savik*\n3\nINDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS.\n-- O --\n1- Map of N. America and Greenland showing location of \"Saviksue\".\n2- Ross' Ship beset in Melville Bay (from Ross' Narrative)\n3- A Family of Cape York Eskimos.\n4- The only Eskimo Knives in Existence made from the \"Saviksue\".\n5- Dragging the \"Dog\" down the Snow Slope.\n7- Hauling the \"Dog\" across the Bay Ice.\n8- Transporting the \"Woman\" over the Boulders on Rollers.\n9- The Ice Ferry Boat.\n10-The Kite rammed into the ice to receive the \"Saviksue\".\n11-The \"Dog\" in Situ.\n12-The \"Dog\" raised slightly.\n13-The \"Woman\" in Situ.\n14-Pile of Trap cobbles about the \"Woman\".\n15-Head of Saviksoah Bay.\n16-The Land (August) Looking from the \"Saviksue\".\n17- The Sea (August) Looking from the \"Saviksue\".\n18-Proposed Group Ancient Eskimos getting Iron from the \"Savik-\nsue\".\n4\n- LOCATION OF AEROLITES -\nc\nB\nA\nPOLE\n6\nA\n8\na\nE\nc\nS\nA\nin\nfrom\nLíncal\nG\n/\njev\n≈\nI\nC.Alfred\n/\nErnestern\nC.Braine\nYORK\nWITH\nBuyoun\n/\nC\nC.Subine\nN\nPt\nNorth\nN\nOFFICE\nDEVO\nPassage\nMelville\nPISCO\nC.Parry\nSd.\nthey\nSTATE\nALESKAN\nSouth\nCOCKBUR\ns\nFranklin BA\nSERT\nISLAND\nStrait\nforewall\nVICTORIA,POL\nHerrnhut\nOFFICE\nKADIAKI\nSound\nFox\n000'₹\nMt.St.Eli\nCIRCLE\nMt.\nChann\nBay\n1,000\nairweath\nClinton Golden\nL.\nGreat\n-- Hudson Strait\nChidley\nSTATE\n0\nSOUT\nFisher\nNorth Lined\nC.Southampton\nM\nlopedate\nI'O\nN\n0\nN\nCHA\nAthabasea\nH\nU\nD\nS\nLake\nWollaston\nIndian\nB\nA\nTHE\nC.Monriefta\n#\nReindeer\nGrt.Whate\nJOHN'S\nE\nVANCOUVER Juan de Fura\n000\nC\n0\nN\nMain\nBay,\nBattleford\nLake\nFt.Albany\nLake\n115\nWinnipeg\nSt.do's\n2,000\nL.Manitoba\nColumbia\nNipigon\nI\nPortlan\nHalifax\nPOADLE\nmnipeg\nAbbitibe\nrior\nMontreal\nWHITE\nC.Blanoo\nBLUE\nBismarck\nMOTTAW\nPortland\n/\nBoston\nCod\nPaul\n1,000\nSECURITY\nC.Mendocino\nR.\nI\nBuffalo\nYork\nGreat\nPitsburk\nSan Francisco\nBrooklyn\nF\nN\nOmah\nBay\nColumbus\nSt\nJose\nCity\nSan\nAtchison\nI\nS\nNorfolk\nCity\nT\nE\nC.Hattaras\nBERMUDA\nCanadian\nNash\nWilmington\nSan Dier\nGila\nLittle Rock\nharleston\nDallas\nSavannah\nacksonville\nGUADAL\n4\nUPED\nC\new\nOrleans\nC.Canaveral\nC\nPta.Eugen\nSan\n1,000\nSAHAMA\nCorpus\nChristi\no\nOR\nG\nU\nL\nF\n0\nF\nALIJOS ROCKS\nDurango\nW\nLucas\nV\nX\nC\n0\nLeon\nTampieo\nGuad\nNORTH\nFGL\nAMERICA\nH\nZaral\n-\nAnspal\n/\n$,000\nComparative\n2,000\n:\nGUATEM go LAW SKIYA THE\n4.\nMUSTA\nMARIO\nMAN\ne\n119\nMap Showing Location of \"Saviksue\".\n5\nHistoric Aerolites.\nHistoric Aerolites.\nThere is always a peculiar interëst attaching to those\nstrange, rare bodies, aerolites, which, issuing out of the infin-\nite abyss of universal space, fall upon the earth with loud deton-\nations, accompanied by flashes or trails of brilliant light.\nLegends and records more or less mythical have come down to\nus from the earliest days, concerning the arrival of some of these\nheavenly visitants; and they have been without exception objects\nof veneration, awe, and even worship.\nSome of them have played a part in history, and are still in\nexistence, waighted with striking associations, historical and\nreligious.\nThe historians Livy, Plutarch, and Pliny all describe them.\nDiogenes of Apollonius mentions a \"star of stone\" that\n\"fell all on fire near Aegos Potamos.\" The fall of the aerolite\nmade a great impression on the inhabitants of Thrace. It was said\nto have been twice the size of an ordinary millstone and made a\nwhole wagon load by itself. This was about 465 B. C.\nIn Galatia, Cybele was worshipped in the form of a\n\"thunder-stone\" which had fallen from the sky in Trepe.\nAt Emesis in Syria, a similar stone was set apart for\nthe worship of the sun. These two stones were subsequently trans-\n7\n2\nported to Rome.\nThe destruction of the enemies of the Jewish people at\nBeth-Horon, as told by Joshua (Josh. Ch. 10, v.ll ) was effected\nby a shower of meteoric stones.\nThe sacred shield that fell in the reign of Numa was an\naerolite (siderite).\nThe sacred black stone, the \"Ruby from Heaven\", kept as\nan object of the greatest veneration in the Kaaba at Mecca is an\naerolite.\nThere is a legend that this stone is only a part (and the\nsmaller) of a meteorite which in its fall upon the earth broke\ninto two pieces. The larger piece was carried away during the\nlife time of Mohammed himself by a party of his followers who as\nthe result of a schism moved away from Arabia and crossed Africa.\nA skilful Barbary worker carved the sacred stone into an idol, and\nit is said to be still in existence among one of the African\ntribes near the Great Desert.\nThe thunderbolt, \"hard and glittering\" from which the\nsword of Antar was fashioned, was an aerolite. (siderite)\nThe meteoric mass observed by Pallas on the plains of\nSiberia, weighed 1540 lbs., and was held in veneration by the Tar-\ntars because of its heavenly origin.\nIn niches in the private chapel of Hamilcar Barca the\ngreat Carthaginian Admiral were deposited sacred \"Abaddirs\" or\n8\n3\nstones fallen from the moon (meteorites), and in the processions\nwhich in ancient Carthage accompanied sacrifices to Moloch, these\nAbaddirs were carried hung in silver filagree slings. \"By their\nfall these stones signified the planets, the sky, the fire, by\ntheir color the darkness of the night; and by their density the\ncohesion of terrestrial things.\" (Salammbo)\nBuddhism also as well as Mohammedanism and the Poly-\ntheisms of Rome, Greece, and Carthage, had its sacred \"heaven\nstone\", and in India the old Nawabs and Maharajahs were very fond\nof wearing a tulwar or a scimetar made from the fine grained iron\nof the \"Swarga-stone\" of \"steel which fell from Heaven; for Indra\nforged that blade.\"\nthe Diana of the Ephesians, the Venus of Cyprus\nAlmost beyond doubt the Palladium, and all those mystic\nstones of the antique temples were aerolites; and those magic and\nresistless blades, forged from thunderbolts or fallen from Heaven,\nwhich have been wielded by gods and heroes in the mythologies of\nall races, unquestionably have a common origin in some rude blade\nrough-forged from the tough, fine-grained iron of an aerolite\n(siderite).\nThe behaviour of a blade of such superlative metal would,\nin those primitive days, easily obtain for it a reputation for\nsupernatural qualities, and this reputation would be tenfold en-\nhanced by the heavenly origin of the metal.\n9\nThe Cape York Aerolites (Siderites) or \"Saviksue\".\nThe Cape York Aerolites.\nThere are now to be added to the preceding list two\nspecimens, the\"Saviksue\" or Cape York aerolites (siderites) which\nfrom their size, their unusual purity and homogeneousness of compo-\nsition, and the extreme northern latitude in which they were found,\neasily deserve a place at the head.\nMore than this these aerolites have human associations, which\nincrease their interest and value tenfold, for they were apparently\nheaven-sent to supply one of the most urgent needs of the most n\nnortherly tribe of human beings on the globe, a little family of\nArctic aborigenes, numbering but a few more than two hundred souls,\nliterally ice-imprisoned in the gloomy depths beyond the Arctic\ncircle.\nThese huge masses of pure soft iron, sent by special dispen-\nsation of Providence to a people so imprisoned and isolated that\nonly from Heaven itself could they obtain the precious metal, have\nenabled that people to pass from the Stone Age to the Iron Age.\nIt is difficult to decide in this instance which is the most\nstriking and impressive, the feelings of mystery, awe and aston-\nishment which associate themselves naturally with such bodies:or\nthe special mission character of these particular aerolites; or the\nshrewd intelligence of those rude Hyperboreans which noted that\nthese stones were different from all the other stones in their\n12\nfrozen land, then discovered the capabilities of the material com-\nposing them, and finally devised rude means of availing themselves\nof those capabilities. The history of these unique specimens can\nnot fail to be of interest.\nThe\nOn the 9th of August, 1818, Capt. Jno. Ross, R.N.,\nimprisoned with his two ships, the Isabella and Alexan-\nder, in the Arctic ice-pack off the desolate northern\nshore of Melville Bay, some twenty-five or thirty miles\nto the eastward of Cape York, was \"surprised by the\nappearance of several men on the ice\ndrawn on\nPerilous Petration the Isabella Alexander.\nrudely fashioned sledges by dogs, which they continued\nto drive backwards and forwards with wonderful\nrapidity.\"*\nAfter a great deal of manœuvring, for a detailed\naccount of which see Ross's original narrative of his\nvoyage, communication was established with these\nindividuals of a hitherto unknown tribe of Hyper-\nboreans, and they were induced to come on board the\nships.\nAmong the scanty possessions of these natives were\ncrude bone knives with cutting edges of iron. The\ndiscovery of this metal in the hands of these isolated\naborigines, who had never seen white men before, and\nhad no idea of the existence of human beings beyond\ntheir own tribe, naturally excited comment. It was\nsupposed that the metal had been obtained from some\nfragments of wreckage, and Ross's armourer thought\nthe\nthe knives were made from pieces of iron hoop or flat-\ntened nails. A little later, however, it was understood\nfrom the natives that the iron was procured from a\nmountain near the shore, and that they cut off it with\n* Voyage of Discovery, &c., &c., by Jno. Ross, Capt. R.N., London, 1819-\n4to, page 80.\nPrint from Ross' Narrative Illustration.\na sharp stone the pieces from which the blades of their\nknives were made.\nThe further references to this metal I give in Ross's\nown words:\n\" He (a native) was now interrogated respecting the iron with which his knife\nwas edged, and informed us that it was found in the mountain before mentioned;\nthat it was in several large masses, of which one in particular, which was harder\nthan the rest, was a part of the mountain; that the others were in large pieces\nabove ground, and not of so hard a nature; that they cut it off with a hard\nstone, and then beat it flat into pieces of the size of a sixpence, but of an oval\nshape.\nthe place where this metal was found, which is called Sowal-\nlick, was at least twenty-five miles distant\n(Ross's Narrative, p. 104).\nRoss endeavored by the promise of large rewards to\nhave the natives bring him specimens of this iron, but\nwithout success. He did, however, obtain a specimen\nof the stone which the natives used for the purpose of\ncutting off the iron from the rock. This stone ap-\npeared to be a basalt and was obtained from Inmallick,\na headland to the northward (Ross's Narrative, p. 112).\nOf the metal Ross says:\n\" The most important mineral production of this country is the iron already\ndescribed, which is found only at Sowallick or the Iron Mountains. The circum-\nstances attending this have already been described; and it is now only necessary\nto add that it has been examined by Dr. Wollaston and found to contain nickel;\nand that it is probably of meteoric origin, since all the masses hitherto found in\ndifferent places, which are equally attributed to this, are distinguished by that\npeculiarity\" (Ross's Narrative, pp. II7-II8).\nCaptain Sabine who accompanied Ross wrote of the matter\nas follows:\nXLI.-Notes on Meteoric Iron used by the Esquimaux of the Arctic Highlands.\nBy Captain (now General Sir) Edward Sabine, R.A., F.R.S., &c., &c. 1819.\nI. \" Quarterly Journal of Literature, Science, etc.,\" 1819, vol. vi., p. 369,\nand \" Geological Magazine,\" vol. ix., p. 74, 1872.\nThe northern Esquimaux, lately visited by Captain Ross (in August, 1818),\nwere observed to employ a variety of implements of iron ; and upon inquiry\nbeing made concerning its source by Captain Sabine, he ascertained that it was\nprocured from the mountains about 30 miles from the coast. The natives de-\nscribed the existence of two large masses containing it. The one was represented\nas being nearly pure iron, and they had been unable to do more than detach\nsmall fragments of it. The other, they say, was a stone, of which they could\nbreak fragments, which contain small globules of iron, and which they hammered\nout between two stones, and thus formed them into flat pieces about the size of\nhalf a sixpence, and which, let into a bone handle, side by side, form the edges of\ntheir knives. It immediately occurred to Captain Sabine that this might be\nmeteoric iron ; but the subject was not further attended to till specimens of the\nknives reached Sir Joseph Banks, by whose desire Mr. Brande examined the iron,\nand he found in it more than 3 per cent. of nickel. This, with uncommon appear-\nance of the metal, which was perfectly free from rust, and had the peculiar sil-\nvery whiteness of meteoric iron, puts the source of the specimens alluded to out\nof all doubt. The one mass is probably entirely iron, and too hard and intract-\nable for further management ; the other appears to be a meteoric stone containing\npieces of iron, which they had succeeded in removing and extending upon a stone\nanvil.\"\n2. Extract from \" An Account of the Esquimaux who inhabit the West Coast\nof Greenland above the Lat. 76.\" By Capt. Edward Sabine, R.A., F.R.S., F.L.S.\n\" Quarterly Journal of Literature, Science, etc.,\" vol. vii., 1819, pp. 72-94.\nSee also the Geological Magazine,\" vol. ix., 1872, pp. 73-74.\n\" Each of the Esquimaux who visited us on the 10th of August (1818), and I\nbelieve each of the others whom we after saw, had a rude instrument answering\nthe purpose of a knife. The handle is of bone, from IO to I2 inches long,\nshaped like the handle of a clasped knife ; in a groove which is run along the\nedge are inserted several bits of flattened iron, in number from three to seven in\ndifferent knives, and occupying generally half the length. No contrivance was\napplied to fasten any of these pieces to the handle, except the one at the point,\nwhich was generally two-edged and was rudely riveted. In answer to our in-\nquiries from whence they obtained the iron, it was at first understood that they\nhad found it on the shore and it was supposed to be the hooping of casks,\nwhich might have been accidentally drifted on the land. We were surprised,\nhowever, in observing the facility with which they were induced to part with their\nknives it is true, indeed, that they received far better instruments in exchange,\nbut they did not appear to attach that value which we should have expected to\niron so accidentally procured. This produced some discussion in the gun-room,\nwhen it appeared that some of the officers who had been present in the cabin\nwhen the Esquimaux were questioned were not satisfied that Zaccheus' ('Sach-\neuse,' of Captain Ross's Narrative, 1819) interpretation had been rightly under-\nstood he was accordingly sent for afresh, and told that it was desired to know\nwhat had been said about the iron of the knives (one of which was on the table),\nand he was left to tell his story without interruption or help. He said it was not\nEnglish or Danish, but Esquimaux iron; that it was got from two large stones on\na hill near a part of the coast which we had lately passed, and which was now in\nsight; the stones were very hard that small pieces were knocked off from them,\nand beaten flat between other stones. He repeated this account two or three\ntimes, SO that no doubt remained of his meaning. In reply to other questions,\nwe gathered from him that he had never heard of such stones in South Greenland;\nthat the Esquimaux had said they knew of no others but these two; that the iron\nbreaks off from the stone just in the state we saw it, and was beaten flat without\nbeing heated. Our subsequent visitors confirmed the above account, and added\none curious circumstance-that the stones are not alike, one being altogether\niron, and so hard and difficult to break that their supply is obtained entirely from\nthe other, which is composed principally of a hard and dark rock; and by break-\ning it they get small pieces of iron out, which they beat as we see them. One of\nthe men, being asked to describe the size of each of the stones, made a motion\nwith his hands conveying the impression of a cube of two feet, and added that it\nwould go through the skylight of the cabin, which was rather larger. The hill\nis in about 76° IO' lat., and 64° 3/4' long.; it is called by the natives Sowilic,'\nderived from 'sowic,' the name for iron amongst these people, as well as amongst\nthe South-Greenlander (sic). Zaccheus told me this word originally signified a\nhard black stone, of which the Esquimaux made knives before the Danes intro-\nduced iron amongst them; and that iron received the same name for being used\nfor the same purpose. I suppose that the Northern Esquimaux have applied it\nin a similar manner to the iron which they have thus accidentally found.\nWe are informed in the account of Captain Cook's Third Voyage that the\ninhabitants of Norton Sound, which is in the immediate neighborhood of Behr-\ning's Straits, call the iron which they procure from Russians shawic,' which is\nevidently the same word. The peculiar colour of these pieces of iron, their soft-\nness and freedom from rust, strengthened the probability that they were of\nmeteoric origin, which has since been proved by analysis.\"\n16\nIn the 40's the King of Denmark made an attempt to\nobtain these aerolites and authorized an expedition for that\npurpose, but nothing came of the effort.\nThe officers of the \"North Star\" one of the Franklin\nSearch ships which passed the winter of 49-50 in Wolstenholme\nSound north of Cape York, were unsuccessful in finding the ae-\nrolites, and the same may be said of the various expeditions,\nEnglish and American, and the whalers, which visited these waters\nduring the fifty years following Ross' voyage. None of these\ncame any nearer than Ross himself to a solution of the mystery.\nThe Capa 1883 Eskimos.\nBaron Nordenskjold ^ sent his ship to Cape York for the\nexpress puspose of discovering and if possible, bringing away\nthese valuable specimens, but the ice in Melville Bay did not\npermit him to get any whore near the locality, and he too returne\ned unsuccessful.\nFrom the fact that the existence of these aerolites\nwas as above noted, learned by an English officer, the British\nMuseum has been specially interested in them, and one of the\nobjects of the splendid English Arctic Expedition of 1875 -76\nwas to discover and secure them, if possible. This expedition\nlike the others, however, failed in its efforts, and until I\nsucceeded in the spring of 1894 in finding the aerolites, the\ninformation already noted above comprised the sum total of our\nknowledge on this interesting subject.\nThe Cape York Eskimos.\nTo Morris K. Jesup,\nPresident American Museum of Natural History,\nDear Sir:- I have investigated the subject\nof the Peary Meteorites, as you requested, and find they are\nare among the most pronounced Meteorites known, as far as their\nstructure and nature can determine. Sections were cut from\nthe two largest and etched portions submittted to three of\nthe most noted experts on this subject in Europe, Prof. Fletch-\ner of the British Museum, Prof. Brizina of Vienna and Prof.\nWeinschonk of Munich, Bavaria. Prof. Fletcher has expressed\nthe opinion that they are as pronounced in character as any\nMeteorites in the British Museum. Prof. Brezina has cabled\nthat \"cutting sent is a Montahedral Meteorite\". While the\nthird person is not yet heard from.\nDrillings were taken from each of the three irons and\nsubmitted to an expert in Meteorite analysis and the follow-\ning results obtained:\nSmall mass.\nMedium size mass.\nLarge mass.\nIron\n90.9939\n91.4689\n91.476%\nNickle\n8.265\n7.775\n7.785\nCobalt\n0.533\n0.533\n0.533\nCopper\n0.016\n0.018\n0.014\nSulphur\n0.019\nnone\nnone\nPhosphorus\n0.172\n0.188\n0.202\nCarbon\n0.014\n0.020\n0.028\nNone of the specimens show Silicon or Manganese. A trace\nof Chronium was found in the outside crust of the largest\nspecimen.\nThe above analysis shows all three irons of the\nPeary group to be not only decidedly Meteoric in nature and\ncomposition, but quite similar in character, proving they are\nparts of the same fall, and were originally one celestial mass.\nSo the Meteoric nature of the masses can be considered as def-\ninitely established.\n(copy)\n23rd of December, 1897.\nBritish Museum (Natural History)\nCromwell Road,\nLondon, S. W.\nDear sir:-\nThe specimen of Peary iron and the letter have reached me\nthis morning. I return the specimen herewith.\nThe character of the etched surface is decisive as regards\nthe extra-terrestrial origin: no such figures have been shown by\nany iron which is not regarded as meteoric, and such figures are\nshown by irons which have been actually seen to fall. As regards\nother Greenland irons, it has been possible to hold opposite views\nas to the origin; about this iron there can be no doubt whatever:\nthe figures are as distinct as in any I have seen.\nI hope that you will eventually send us a slice to put in\nour meteorite Collection.\nI am, yours faithfully,\n(signed) L. Fletcher.\nMorris K. Jesup, Esq.,\nAmerican Museum of Natural History,\nNew York, U. S. A.\n( Translation)\nMunich, December 28, 1897.\nMr. Morris K. Jesup,\nNew York.\nMy dear sir:-\nFortunately, I am able to determine with certainty, the\npiece of iron which you kindly sent to me for examination. Like\nall others, it bears the characteristics of Meteoric origin,\nand it is absolutely and without doubt, a meteorite. If one\nshould wish to doubt this, one might as well question all the\nknown meteorites of the day which belong to this class of irons,\nas their falling have never been observed. The sample you sent\nme belongs to the group of the Oktaedriethen irons, and it re-\nsembles that of Totura of prehistoric times. I should be pleased\nif you will allow me to retain the piece you sent me, and I shall\nbe pleased to assist you at any time.\nDr. Weinschenk.\nL\nA Family of Cape York Eskimos.\n19\nThe Cape York Eskimos.\n-\n0\n-\nBefore giving an account of the incidents connected\nwith the finding and bringing home of the Cape York aerolites,\na few words regarding the strange people with whose history these\naerolites have been SO intimately associated cannot fail to be of\ninterest.\nDenisons of a little arctis oasis, prisoned on the east\nby the savage white slopes and superstitious terrors of the Ser-\nmiksoah or Great Ice; on the west by the waves of Smith Sound; on\nthe north by the crystal ramparts of the Humboldt glacier; and on\nthe south by the stretching miles of the unknown glacier faces of\nMelville Bay; they number in all but a few more than two hundred\nsouls and are at once the smallest, the most northerly and most\nunique tribe of human beings upon the earth. Very possibly also\nthey are the oldest tribe of men upon the western hemisphere.\nMany of them of strikingly Mongolian type of countenance;\nall of them possessing in a marked degree the oriental character-\nistics of mimicry, ingenuity and patience in mechanical duplication;\nthere seems to be a strong presumption in favor of the theory of\nClements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical Society that\n20\nthey are a remnant of an ancient Siberian tribe, which in the univer-\nsal wars and unrest of the Middle Ages was forced northward off\nthe coast of northern Asia and wandering to and across unknown\nlands in the central polar basin, found their way to the northern\nterminus of Greenland and thence down the coast to the region of\nSmith Sound. A portion of the tribe may have pressed on still\nfurther down the Greenland coast to Cape Farewell, while still\nanother may have come southward along the east coast of Greenland\nand yet another may have crossed Smith Sound and passing through\nthe North American archipelago have reached and inhabited the\narctic coast of North America.\nCertain it is however, that one portion tarried in the\nWhale Sound oasis, and for an unknown length of time has remained\nthere till the present, neither increasing nor decreasing in num-\nbers, but preserving natures balance with the food producing capa-\nbilities of the contracted prison.\nTheir only inter course with members of the human family\noutside of their own tribe, has consisted of rare encounters of an\noccasional hardy hunter out on an extended bear hunt, with the\nnatives of the west side of Smith Sound, and in more recent\nyears the occasional visit of a few of their men to the Whalers\ndetained in the ice near Cape York or the rare wintering of some\n21\nexploring expedition among them.\nAbsolutely wanting in every one of the thousand and\none commonest and most necessary ( as it seems to us) adjuncts of\nmen\nlife; living the life of a carnivorous animal, they are yet real X and\nwomen of a, by no means to be despised, grade of intelligence.\nThey may be summed up, as a community of children in\ntheir simplicity, honesty, cheerfulness, hospitality and happy\nfreedam from all care; of animals in their surroundings, their\nfood and their habits; of iron men in their utter disregard of hun-\nger, cold and fatigue; of beings of more than ordinary intelligence\nas evidenced in the construction and use of their implèments of\nthe chase and their ingenious concentration of every one of the few\npossibilities of the frozen prison which is their home, upon the\ntwo great problems of their existenze; something to eat and same-\nthing to wear.\n22\nDiscovery of the \"Saviksue\" (Great Irons) of the Eskimos.\n23\nDiscovery of the \"Saviksue\".\nWhen turning over in my mind the project for my 1891-92\nExpedition to Whale Sound, the discovery of the Cape York aerolites\nwas naturally one of the attractions of this region, and during the\nwinter at Redcliffe House I obtained from the natives considerable\ninformation in regard to them. I learned that they had been visit-\ned by many of the present generation of the natives, and I promised\none of the young men of the tribe a gun if he would guide me to\nthem when my party returned soutward.\nThe lateness of the season, thick weather, and the presence\n1892\nof much ice when the \"Kite\" 1 steamed southward past Cape York, render-\ned any delay inadvisable, and the attempt was abandoned for the\ntime.\nAgain in 1893-94 the discovery of these aerolites had\nits place in the schedule of work which I hoped to accomplish,\nand when on the 1st of August, '93, my ship, the \"Falcon\" dropped\nanchor in side of Cape York, after the quèskest passage on record\nthrough Melville Bay (24 hrs. 50 min.) and from the summit of Cape\nYork itself I saw the coast to the eastward apparently free from\nheavy ice, I hesitated for some time before deciding that it was\nnot advisable to risk any delay to or interference with, the\nmain object of my expedition by taking the \"Falcon\" out of her\ncourse.\n24\nThe mishaps to my inland ice party and its enforced re-\nturn to head quarters in the latter part of April, 1894, gave me\nlast, the opportunity to make a special trip for the discovery\nof the aerolites; and on Wednesday, May 16th, '94 I left Anniver-\nsary Lodge in search of them, accompanied by Lee with my iron run-\nner sledge and ten dogs.\nAt the Eskimo settlement of Netiulumi on the south side of\nWhale Sound I picked up my guide Telikoteenah. This man was thor-\noughly conversant with the region about Cape York, having lived\nthere several seasons, and professed to be well acquainted with the\nlocation of the\"Saviksue\" (aerolites) which he said he had seen\nrepeatedly. He told me that there were three, of varying sizes,\nthe smallest about the size of a\"mikkie\" (dog) indicating a dog\ncurled up, the second considerably larger, and the third again\nvery much larger than the second. The two were up on the side of\nmountain. After much talk and considerable hesitation on his\npart he agreed to go with me to Cape York and guide me to the\naerolites. He would take his own sledge and four dogs, and for the\nconsiderations of a knife I obtained from Ahngeenyah, another Eski-\nmo, five more fine animals. This gave me sixteen dogs and two\nsledges.\nTen days later we had rounded the dark cliffs of Cape York\nand were approaching the head of a little bight well into the re-\n25\ncesses of Melville Bay. On the slope of a mountain near the head\nof this bight, according to my guide were to be found the wonderful\niron stones, but it was with serious misgivings on my part that\nafter fastening our dogs to the ice foot, we began the search.\nFor several days past it had been showing and my guide had\nrepeatedly assured me that the objects of our journey would be so\ndeeply covered that we could not find them. There certainly were\ngrounds for this fear for all the minor topographical features of\nthe narrow belt of land which here separates the great interior\nsnow cap from the frozen chaos of Melville Bay, were hidden under\nthe excessive precipitation of the past few months, and the extra-\nordinary amount of snow swept in from the Bay by furious south-\neasters, and piled in gigantic drifts upon the land.\nAfter passing some five hundred yards up a narrow valley,\nTelikoteenah stopped and began probing in the snow with his whip\nhandle. Then a bit of blue trap rock projecting above the snow,\ncaught his eye. Kicking aside the snow he exposed more pieceses\nand told me this was the top of the pile of stones used by his an-\ncestors in pounding fragments from the aerolites. He then indicat-\nof the larger\ned a spot four or five feet distant as the location of the long-\nsought aerolites. Returning to the sledge for the saw knife, he\nbegan excavating the snow and at last, after digging a pit some\nthree feet deep and five feet in diameter, at 5:30 A. M., Sunday,\nMay 27, 1894, the great brown heaven born mass, rudely awakened\nfram its winter sleep, found for the first time in its cycles of\nthe\nexistence with eyes of a white man gazing upon it. I had found at\nlast the object which had baffled more or less energetic and con-\ntinuous efforts for seventy-six years. In addition to its thick\nblanket of snow the aerolite was completely coated with a half inch\nthick covering of ice.\nSeen from above it was of an irregular rounded trapezoidal\nshape, with a circumference of eleven feet, a maximum length of\nfour fett and three inches, and a maximum width of three feet and\nthree inches. The highest part of the stone above ground was\nfifteen inches. Its average thickness was apparently one and a\nhalf feet, but was difficult to determine at this season. The\nweight was estimated at not less than five thousand, five hundred\npounds and might be double that depending upon the penetration of\nthe mass into the earth. It was surrounded and partly covered by\nnumerous fragments of fine grained blue trap rock, portions of wave\nworn boulders and cobbles, brought here by the natives on their\nsledges from far up the Smith Sound Coast for the purpose of de-\ntaching flakes of the metal. Al the other rock of the vicinity is\ngneissose.\nTelikoteenah told me how the ancient knives of his people\nused to be made, namely, by inserting several small flattened\npieces of this iron in a bone or ivory back. Then with a piece of\ntrap lying near he showed me how the flakes of iron were detached\nfrom the aerolite. Nothing could have been more interesting, than\n27\nthan his re-enacting of this ancient practice.\nI scratched a rough \"P\" on the surface of the metal, as an\nindisputable proof of my discovery; built a bairn near byith\nwhich I placed a brief record; then after a last look at the\ncelestial straggler, descended to my sledge, without making any\nattempt to get at the smaller aerolite (the dog) which layy a\nshort distance lower down the slope, beneath the huge drift\nthat filled the valley.\nSome two weeks later I was back again at the Lodge, after\na most arduous journey, much of which had been overland, owing\nto the early breaking up of the Smith Sound ice.\nIn the latter part of August of the same year I at-\ntempted in the \"Falcon\" to penetrate Melville Bay to the site\nof the Aerolites, and embark them for the purpose of sending\nthem home. The summer of'94 however, was an unusually severe\none in this portion of the Arctic regions, and the ice of Mel-\nville Bay did not move out at all, but remained cemented to\nthe shore throughout the entire season, rendering it impossible\nfor me to get my ship within thirty or fortM miles of the ae-\nrolites.\nIn December of the same year (the midnight of the Arctic\nwinter night), I made a second attempt to revisit the aerolites,\nbut bad weather combined with the darkness to close the ever\ninhospitable door of Melville Bay to me, and I was unable to get\n28\nbeyond Cape York where I was storm bound for several days and\nthen returned to the Lodge, narrowly escaping the loss of my dogs\nand sledge by the breaking up of the ice about me while rounding\nCape Parry.\n29\nThe only Eskimo Knives made from the \"Saviksue.\n31\nDiscovery of the Only Eskimo Knives in Existence\nMade from the Metal of the\"Saviksue.\"\nIt was during the first moon of the Arctic winter night\nof 1894-95 that I made my unsuccessful attempt to reach the\n\"Saviksue\". During the second moon I made a tour of the Eskimo\nsettlements in Whale Sound for the purpose of purchasing material\nfor the equipment for my Inland Ice journey the following spring.\nLee was my companion and one night after a long day's ride upon\nour sledges over the frozen surface of the sound, we drove our dogs\nacross the ice foot in front of the village of Netiulumi in Barden\nBay, and turning them over to the care of our Eskimo friends, en-\ntered a couple of adjoining igloos (houses) for our night's rest.\nIn the morning when Lee came in from his igloo to join me in\nour simple breakfast of seal meat, biscuit and coffee, he brought\nwith him a small oodoo or woman's knife which his hostess the\nwife of Kyangwah wished to give me in exchange for some\nneedles. Something peculiar in the shape or make of the imple-\nments caused me to take it in my hand and examine it, and I saw\nthat the cutting edge was composed of five small fragments of iron\ningeniously set in a groove in the ivory handle.\nSending for the woman I asked her where she got the knife and\nshe replied, \"Saviksuami\" sukkennuksue\" (it is from the great\niron. (the aerolite) It is very old) Further questioning elicit-\ned the information that in the autumn while she was re-building\n32\none of the old igloos at Netiulumi that her husband had selected\nfor their winter residence, she found this knife buried in the int\nerior. She herself had never had seen one like it before, but the\nold men of the tribe had told her that it was one of those made\nfrom the \"Saviksue\" and used by their women of generations pasted.\nPleased with my prize I gave the woman all the needles I had\nleft, an entire paper, which unbounded wealth immediately raised\nher to the proud position of millionaire among her less fortunate\nsisters.\nThe knife thus obtained is\ninches in height with a\ncutting edge\ninches in length formed of five fragments of the\nthree\nmeteoric iron. The handle is composed of two pieces of bone and\nthe entire implement is of a size to make it seem almost a toy.\nYet small and crude as it is compared with the steel knives which\nI have distributed among the tribe during the past five years, it\nover the fragments of flint\nstill must have been a great improvement 1 which previous to the\nutilization of the metal of the aerolites, formed the only cutting\nimplements of these people.\nDiligent inquiry of nearly every member of the trive since\nhas demonstrated not only that there is no other knife like it in\nthe tribe, but that this is the only one ever seen by any of the\ntribe with the exception of one or two of the oldest men.\nIn March of 1895 while packing various specimens at my\n33\nwinter house previous to starting upon the Inland Ice trip, I\nMO\ncame across some relics of the ancient people of this region\ndiscovered by one of the men of the present generation, while\nTO\ndigging in an old igloo at Kangerdlooksoah, and brought by him to\nDo\nme.\n1\nThere was a lance head of bone, bone the bone point of a harpoon,\na bone scraper, and a peculiar piece of bone some three or four\ninches in length with a groove extending along a portion of one\nside. It at once occurred to me that this was the handle of an-\nother of these ancient knives, and in order, if possible, to deter-\nmine the matter absolutely, I called in one of the old men then\nvisiting at my head quarters, and spreading the various articles\nout upon the table told him I wished to know what they were.\nPointing to each one in turn he explained to me what they were,\nand the peculiar shaped piece of bone was identified by him as the\nhandle of a man's knife the cutting edge of which had been com-\nposed of fragments from the aerolites.\nThe length of the groove was only\ninches and it would\nseem that this knife must have long antedated those which Ross\nsaw in 1818, as the cutting edge of one which he figures is much\nlonger. Probably as the result of long experience the natives\nhad at the time of his visit become more expert in working the\niron and could detach larger flakes from the parent mass.\n34\nThis knife, like the other one already described, is the only one\nof the kind known to any of the tribe; and as the only ones ever\ntaken from this region were those obtained by Ross in 1818 which\nhave since disappeared; the two specimens here described and\nfigured are probably and perhaps unquestionably the only ones in\nexistence.\nNote about M useurren speciments\n35\nFinal Procuring of the \"Saviksue. =\n- Dragging the \"Dog\" over the Rocks.\n37\nFinal Procuring of the \"Saviksue\".\nIn spite of previous unsuccessful attempts to revisit\nthe aerolites the effort was not given up, and finally late in\nAugust, 1895, I rounded Cape York in the steamer \"Kite\" which had\nbeen sent by Mrs. Peary to bring me and my two companions home,\nand finding Melville Bay comparatively free from ice, every possi-\nble pound of steam was crowded on and the \"Kite\" pushed eastward\nat her utmost spped in order to reach the vicinity of the aerol\nlites before a change of wind should shut the door in my face.\nAs we penetrated mile after mile into the icy fastnesses of\nMelville Bay without finding our progress barred by ice, my hopes\nbegan to rise, only to be dashed again when we entered \"Saviksoah\nBay\" and saw the previous winter's ice stretching entirely across\nit. It looked as if even after getting thus far I was yet to be\nstopped several miles away from the objects of my visit. From\nthe masthead, however, a narrow lead of open water was detected\npenetrating into the Bay, and following this lead to its end then\nramming the \"Kite\" her length into the edge of the floe, the ice\nhooks were put out and the ship made fast a mile from the shore.\nNo sooner was this done than with two companions each armed\nwith a boat hook to assist in crossing the leads and pools of\nwater which interrupted the surface of the ice in every direction\nI climbed over the side of the \"Kite\", crossed the ice, reached\nthe ice foot at the head of the Bay, Bay and, passing up the little\nvalley, stood once more beside the great Heaven-born mass, from\nCrossing\nA.Operti.\nDavis Straits.\nThe Hope's how.\n\" Theusual Thing!\nstove in .\nA. Operti 7897\nCrassing Davis Straits\nThe Car-boisting an to the railway.\nC\nA.Operti.\nBrother Sirt Peary.\nBrother A. Operti. Brother Capt. Bartlett.\nS.S. Hope-\niceturgs.\nKU\nEskimos\nD\n[17]\nTHIN\nI\nstool KANE XX leo\nOr\nA.Operti.\nThe Master Masons: and Meteorite.\nBrother Figgins 3 Pairs of ASHLERS (Native rock.) Brother Hunter.\nCOPY.\nDr. E. A. Wanschenk, einschengh\nDecember 11, 1897.\nMineralogosches Institut,\nMunich, Bavaria.\nDear Sir:\nAs conflicting views are likely to be presented re-\ngarding the meteoric nature of the Iron masses brought from\nGreenland by Lieut. Peary, during 1895 and 1897, I have taken\nthe liberty of soliciting an expression of your valuable opinion\nThe two smaller masses are in this Museum, and were brought\nhome in 1895. The larger specimen, better distinguished by\nLieut. Peary as the \"Great Cape York Meteorite\", is at the pres\nent time lying at the Navy Yard at this Port.\nMy relations with Lieut. Peary are of a personal and most\nfriendly nature, aside from my intercourse with him as Presi-\ndent of this Institution. For these reasons I especially de-\nsire that no question may hereafter arise touching the authen-\nticity of these meteorites. A decisive opinion will not only\nbenefit this Museum, but will, I assure you, be mutually grat-\nifying to Lieut. Peary and myself.\nThe section which I have sent to you for examination is\ncut from the great mass now at the Navy Yard, and I may add\nthat the markings are similar to those of the section cut from\nthe larger of the two specimens at the Museum. I have also\nincluded a copy of the analysis of borings made from each of\nthe three meteorites.\nIf it is not too great an intrusion upon your valuable\ntime, I will be much pleased to receive an expression of your\njudgment in this matter at your early convenience. I have\nsought your opinion in the cause of science and in the knowledge\nthat it will be appreciated by Lieut. Peary as well as myself.\nBy my direction the Secretary has mailed you the Annual Re-\nport of the Museum for 1896.\nPermit me in conclusion to ask that in returning the sec-\ntion, you will please cause it to be sent by registered mail,\naddressed to myself; the Secretary will promptly refund you the\namount of any expense involved in the transaction, if you will\ndo me the favor to inform him.\nI am, sincerely yours,\n(signed) morno President\nCOPY.\nDecember 11, 1897.\nDr. Aristides Brezina,\nDirector Naturhist HofMuseum,\nViena, Austria.\nDear Sir:\nAs conflicting views are likely to be presented rel-\native to the meteoric nature of the Iron masses brought from\nGreenland by Lieut. Peary, during 1895 and 1897, I have taken\nthe liberty of asking an expression of your valuable opinion.\nThe two smaller masses are in this Museum, and were brought\nhome in 1895. The larger specimen, better distinguished by\nLieut. Peary as the \"Great Cape York Meteorite\", is at the\npresent time lying at the Navy Yard in this Port.\nMy relations with Lieut. Peary are of a personal and most\nfriendly nature, aside from my intercourse with him as Pres-\nident of this Institution. For these reasons I especially\ndesire that no question may hereafter arise touching the authen-\nticity of these meteorites. A decisive opinion will not only\nbenefit this Museum, but will, I assure you, be mutually grat-\nifying to Lieut. Peary and myself.\nThe section which I have sent to you for examination is\ncut from the great mass now at the Navy Yard, and I may add\nthat the markings are similar to those of the section cut from\nthe larger of the two specimens at the Museum. I have also\nincluded a copy of the analysis of borings made from each of\nthe three meteorites.\nIf it is not too great an intrusion upon your valuable\ntime, I will be much pleased to have an expression of your\njudgment in this matter at your early convenience. I have\nsought your opinion in the cause of science and in the knowl-\nedge that it will be appreciated by Lieut. Peary as well as\nmyself. By my direction the Secretary has mailed you the An-\nnual Report of the Museum for 1896.\nPermit me in conclusion to ask that in returning the sec-\ntion you will please cause it be sent by registered mail\naddressed to myself; the Secretary will promptly refund you\nthe amount of any expense involved in the transaction, if you\nwill do me the favor to inform him.\nI am, sincerely yours,\nPresident\n51\nlater lje goes out upon the ice and, his powerful arm, no longer\nweakened by hunger, but in full vigor, they see him hirl his\nharpoon with its tiny glistening point and transfix his seal,\nat three times the distance that their stone weapons would drive\nhome.\nWith sll the speed of wolfish dogs urged by adder-like\nwhips, the wonderful news spreads through the tribe, and before\nthe sun sets for the next long night, the point of every\nhunter's harpoon is tipped with bits of the body of the \"brown\nwoman\".\n-3-\nshores of Melville Bay are siderites (metallic meteorites).\nOne of them is by far the largest known meteorite in the world.\nAll three, but particularly the two smaller ones, possess a\nhistorical and human interest such as attaches to no others.\nThey were never seen by, or their location known to any white\nman before my discovery of them in May, 1894.\nCivil Engineer, U. S. N.\n49\nrest upon a \"brown woman\" and there in the bright sunshine had\nidly tried to break off a fragment of her with a stone lying\nnear. He had not succeeded, yet he remembers vividly how when\nhis hand slipped and struck against the place where he had been\npounding, a sharp edge had cut a deep clean gash in his flesh.\nWhy should this not do for a harpoon-head? A word to his\nfaithful wife and slave, and covering the children as best they\ncán with the remaining furs, they climb the little valley and\nwith hands and feet remove the shrouding snow from the \"brown\nwoman\". Then with a rough stone he pou ds and digs at a rough\npoint of her knee. When he tires his wife relieves him. Soon\nhowever, the bitter cold of the fierce wind numbs them. They\nare likely to freeze before the tedious work is done.\nBut though the flame of life burns wavering in the hunter,\nhis brain spurred by the chance of life is still active. From\nhis hut he brings a shoulder blade of his last dog, and with\nthis rude implement carves snow blocks and builds a low hut\nover the \"brown woman \"lap, just large enough for two kneeling\npersons. Sheltered now from the cold he and his wife strive\nincessantly at the iron. At last a tiny scale flies off. The\nman seizes it, draws the edge across his bare finger, and\nlaughs with joy as it cuts to the bone. But one flake is not\nenough. So through the long hours the two toil till another\nand another has been loosened.\nThen while the woman sleeps exhausted, the man hastily, yet\nwith all care, fashions his harpoon-head, setting the bits of\nus try and picture to ourselves the first use of the iron from\nthe \"Sqviksue\".\nIt is in the late spring of several hundred years ago. One\nof the most selfareliant of the Cape York hunters has come with\nhis family into the depths of Melville Bay on a protracted bear\nhunt, and led away by the excitement of the chase he remains\nuntil the sudden breaking up of the ice cuts off his retreat\nto the Cape.\nConstructing a rough stone shelter (which it so happens is\nat the head of the bay where the \"brown woman\" from heaven and\nher dog lie) he covers it with the skins of seals which he cap-\ntures, and lives in comfort through the summer, hunting indus-\ntriously.\nWith the approach of winter he covers his hut deep with\nstones and snow, for although he could now reach Cape York, all\nhis food, the result of his summer's hunting, is here, and here\nhe must remain till spring.\nAll goes well with him through the long dark Arctic night\nfor\ntill early in February, when the southern sky at noon shows, a\nfew hours the twilight of returning day. Then a she bear\nprowling along the shore gaunt with the winter's hunger and\naccompanied by her two cubs, scents and pounces upon his cache\n48\nof seal meat. Warned by the cries of his dogs, the hunter at-\ntacks the robbers with desperation, but is unable to prevent\ntheir carrying off all his remaining supply of meat, and is\nleft with a gaping claw slash in his side. Worse than all this\nthe old bear carries away in her body his only flint harpoon\nhead. He is left foodless and weaponless. His only chance is\nto try and reach Cape York through the darkness and savage\ncold.\nBut now as if Tornarsuk (the evil one) was angered at him,\nthe devilish storms of the spring equinox set in, and for days\nand weeks the world is but an Arctic inferno of blinding snow,\ndarkness and deadly winds. When at last it clears and the sun\nglares coldly over the southward wilderness of bergs, glinting\nthe frost crystals in the air, and coloring the marble heights\nof the Ice Cap yellow, our hunter and his family have eaten\nthe last morsel of their last dog, and are starbing upon frag-\nments of the skins about their huts. Yet out upon the white\nsurface of the bay are black spots which he knows are seals.\nHe attempts to find a stone that he can utilize for a har-\npoon-head, but the search is useless. Everything is covered\nwith the pitiless shroud of snow.\nHe gives up hope and is crouched in his freezing hut wait-\ning for the end which will come very quickly now to his wife\nand babies, when suddenly it flashes through his brain that\nthe previous summer while bringing a big seal upon his back\nacross the little isthmus behind his hut, he had sat down to\n50\niron along the point of a piece of bone, fits the bone to the\nshaft, and with feverish energy starts out upon the ice towards\none of those tantalizing black spots.\nWhen still some distance away he lies down upon the snow\nand begins crawling towards the seal in the peculiar fashion\nof his race. Now however, weakness begins to tell upon him, an\nand before he gets within striking distance, he is obliged to\nstop for breath. The seal takes fright and starts for his hole\nin the ice. It is a moment of agony for the starving hunter.\nThe distance of the seal is twice the range at which long ex-\nperience has taught him his blunt flint headed harpoon would be\neffective. Still, with a desperate effort he hurls his weapon\nat the animal. It reaches the mark just as the seal plunges\ninto the water. The blow is weak, and yet the harpoon, its way\ncleft for it by the celestial metal, drives home and the strug-\ngling seal is his. Starvation is averted. The heavenly \"brown\nwoman\", has given the dusky hunted full measure of sweet life,\nhis own, his wife's, his children's.\nIt is not many days after this that he and his family,\nonce more strong and well fed, start for the great Cape, his\nprecious harpoon-head suspended by a rawhide thong in his\nbosom.\nArriving, his comrades who had given him up for dead,\ncrowd around him in surprise, which deepens when he draws the\ntiny weapon from his bosom and tells them all his story.\nTheir surprise changes to awe and then to delight when\n3\nINDEX OF ILLUSTRATIONS.\n1- Map of N. America and Greenland showing location of \"Saviksue\".\n2-2-Ross' Ship beset in Melville Bay (From Ross' Narrative)\n3- A Family of Cape York Eskimos.\n4- The only Eskimo Knives in Existence made from the \"Saviksue\".\n5-5Dragging the \"Dog\" down the Snow Slope.\n7- Hauling the \"Dog\" across the Bay Ice.\n8- Transporting the \"Woman\" over the Boulders on Rollers.\n9- The Ice Ferry Boat.\n10- The Kite rammed into the ice to receive the\"Saviksue\".\n11- The \"Dog\" in Situ.\n12- The \"Dog\" raised slightly.\n13- The \"Woman\" in Situ.\n14- Pile of Trap cobbles about the \"Woman\".\n15- Head of Saviksoah Bay.\n16- The Land (August) looking from the \"Saviksue\".\n17- The Sea (August) looking from the \"Saviksue\".\n18-Proposed Group Ancient Eskimos getting Iron from the \"Saviksue\".\n- 46-\nWhen, early in the evening of Sept. 11th, the Hope steam-\ned out of Disco Harbor and headed southwestward across the Stra-\nits for Cape Walsingham, Baffins Bay was a sea of amber glass\na\nand the narrow band of steely yellow sky, against which four\nor five berge loomed in inky blackness, lay north and northwest\npast the sable face of Blaafjeld. As we cleared the island\na short vitreousswell came heaving down upon us from the north\nward, and fortunately showed us the position of the dangerous\nParry Rock for which we were heading directly, and which was\nnot seen in the darkness until the breaking sea upon it was\nwithin two ship's lengths. Only the quick starboarding of the\nhelm cleared us. This rock lying 8 miles W.N.W. ( Mag.) from\nDisco Harbor, is one of the most dangerous on the coast, lying\nas it does so far out, and being a mere sharp point which in\ncalm weather or with ice about, is not likely to be noticed\nuntil one's ship is upon it.\nShortly after midnight on report from the mate I went on\ndeck with the Captain and found the Hope tearing along at full\nspeed right in the trough of a heavy sea, with jib, foretopmast\nstaysail, maintopmast and topgallant mast staysails, and spanker\nset, and the wind howling through her tense rigging like a\nthousand demons. Slowing the engine to half speed, stowing the\ngallantstaysail, and bringing the ship's head more into the\nwind, eased her very perceptibly, but the wind continued to\n- 47 -\ngain in fury, and the sea rose with it, black walls of water\nplunging down upon us as if the very cliffs of the shore had\nbroken $ 00 se\nAbout three in the morning a fiercer gust beat the Hope\nover till one of the whale boate on the port davits filled, and\nas the Hope staggered up again the davits tore loose and boat\nand all went overboard. Scarcely had this taken place when a\nsea broke out of the darkness upon the weather quarter where\nthe Captain and myself were clinging to the mizzen rigging.\nIn an instant we were drenched, beaten down, half suffocated\nand stunned, by the resistless weight of water which burst\nover the rail, yet clung to the shrouds with all our strength,\nAs I cleared my eyes and shook myself free from the crashing\ncataract of water I heard an inarticulate cry from the man at\nthe wheel and turning in that direction could just make out\nthat the bear cage, a heavy box of open plank in which the two\nbears were confined, had filled with water, carried away its\nlashings, and jammed against the wheel rendering it immovable.\nThe Hope was falling off broadside to the furious seas The in-\nstant instinct of both the Captain and myself was the same, but\nthe angle of the cabin's skylight was in his way, while I had a\nclear road, and throwing myself headlong across the slany deck\nhands and shoulder reached the corner of house together. I felt\nit quiver undey my impact, another surge with all my strength;\n- 48-\nit ydelded; and as bears, house, myself, and some tone of water,\nwent crashing into the lee scuppers, I heard the rattle of the\n-\nrudder chains and the burr of the wheel as the helmsman with\nall the fierceness of desparation whirled the heitm hard-a-lee;\nfelt the wild heave and staggering plunge of the Hope followed\nhowever by no thundrous plungs of water on deck and a minute\nlater as I energed from the seathing chaos, clinging to a rope\nend I saw the crest of a giant sea, such as the breath of an\nAtctic hurricane alone can raise in Davis' Strait hissing away\ninto the grey green gloom to leeward. Not until I had seen\nthe bear's house lashed with turn after turn of heavy line did\nbelow\nI go, to get on dry clothes.\nAfter this with lifeline stretched along the deck the\nman at the wheel lashed to his post, and a preventer line rigged\nto keep the wheel from being torn from his grasp by the battering\nseas, the Hope rolled dizzily through the remaining hours of\nthe night till the grey light of dawn began to filter through\nthe tumult. Time after time the lee dead eyes were under\nwater, and as the Hope leaned and wavered and hesitated with\nher lee rail out of sight, and the boiling tumult to leeward\nseathing up to the side of the companionway, it seemed as if\nshe would never right. Through it all the two bears kept up\na hoarse roaring and frm foreward between the crashing of the\nwaves, rose the shrill howls of my poor dogs tied in the fore-\n- 49-\npeak. Suddenly the enginèsr stopped. What was up now! A\nhurried inquiry and investigation showed that a rope from the\ngear of the lost boat was fouled in the propellor. We\ncould not spare the propellor now. It was holding our head\nto the sea and it must be started at any cost and cut or wear\naway the fouled line. \"Pull her wide open\" down the engind-\nroom transom and after a few moments delay, to my intense re-\nlief there ran from stern to stem a wrenching, grinding tremor\nsensible above all the shocks of pounding waves. The pro-\npellor had started, then it stopped, then started again, stop-\ned once morem then in a labored irregular way which however gradually\ngrew more easy went on uninterruptedly. That menace was past.\nAs the daylight grew more pronounced till I could see\nthe length of the ship it showd that everything that had been\nleft on deck, including the galley, the spare rudder and the\nsaluting cannon had carried away into the lee scuppers.\nTurning from the ship, an infernal of Arctic hellishness, a\ntumultuous horde of furious, scurged, bitter cold waves rose\nout of the windward greyness and tossed up their heads only to\nbe lashed dwn by the merciless wind until in savage revenge\nthey swept down upon the Hopr like Arctic wolves, and poured\nover her trembling rail as if to devour her. Crouched behind\nthe weather rail, with eyes just pupil width above it fascinated\nI watched the turmoil. The wind, resistless and sonorous as\n- 50\nNiagara, roared across the sathing waters almost as tangible as\nthey. And as in the plunging flood of Niagara, there are coult\nless tiny sagittate spurts or jets of greater velocity than the\nrest, so in this aerial torrent there were jets which cut the\nwater as a gravers tol cuts metal, and drove the liquid shavings\nin sagittate line. The returning daylight enabled us to see\nand meet the waves better, but it added ten fold to the savage-\nness of the scene. Nowhere will such a mad sea be raised in\nsuch an incredibly short time, as when the autumn boreal winds\nmarshalling in Baffins Bay charge southward, and crowding through\nthe narrow Davis Strait, hurl every intruder out of the realm of\nnight, foundering many a majestic berg and driving others foam-\ning like battle ships through the water.\nIt is the mighty besom $ Kokoyah, the demon of the north\nsweeping his domain clear, and closing his realms for the winter\nAnd no where fortunately does the sea subside more quickly\nafter the wind goes down.\nSubsiding almost as rapidly as it had arisen the storm\nat noon was greatly moderated, and by evening the sea was an\nanimated plahe of hammered silver toucher here and there with\nthe frosting of the white caps; a few stray ice bergs glistened\ninkvarious directions like mammoth pearls; the sun was shining\nbrilliantly and the Hope with lee scuppers to the water, and\nthe apankerm jib, and double reefed topsails, the leaches of\n-23-\nearthly power could keep her from capsizing. For perhaps a minute,\n(it seemed to me a week) the vibrations continued, then with a\nlift and lurch of the stern, they ceased, The danger was past.\nThe Hope's momentum had carried her over the reef.\nFrom Cape York I steamed away for Cape Sabins, but the\nnext morning off Wolstemholme Island a furious Arctic gale de-\nscended upon the ship, against which she was barely able to fight\nher way inch by inch, to safety under the lee of the island,\nwhere for 36 hours she dodged back and forth, a phantom ship, her\ndecks deep with snow, her spars, sails and rigging crusted with the\nfrozen crystals; while I, with four of my bravest Eskimos worked\nlike miners in our timber cage under the meteorite, lowering it\nwith hydraulic jacks, inch by inch and foot by foot, in order to\nget it low enough not to endanger the ship's safety. All this time\nthe furious wind howled through the Hope's tense rigging, as if\nthe demon of the Sa-vik-soah were shrieking at us.\nThe superstitious ones on board were now more firmly\nconvinced than ever that we should never reach home, and that this\nw\nTHE\n7 - 94\n- Sledging the \"Dog\" down the Snow Slope.\n39\nwhich a little more than a year before I had removed the deep\ncovering of the winter's snows.\nWith the snow now melted away from the aerolite and its sur-\nroundings, it was possible to obtain a clear idea of the diffi-\nculties incident to transporting the mass to the ship. I was en-\ncouraged to find the aerolite was not sseriously larger than I\nhad first estimated it to be, my excavation of the previous year\nhaving determined its maximum dimensions. The continued existence\nof a large drift of compacted snow and ice in the little valley\nbetween it and the head of the Bay, was also a valuable point in\nour favor. Yet the several hundred feet of distance intervening\nbetween the aerolite and the upper end of this drift, thickly\ncovered with large gneissose boulders; and the wide lane of open\nwater separating the ice in the Bay from the shore at the mouth\nof the valley, presented difficulties which I could see would re-\nquire all our resources to overcome. As it was now nearly mid-\nnight we returned to the ship.\nThe next day the large aerolite was lifted out of its bed\nwith jacks and a rough sledge made for the smaller one which now\nthat the snow was melted away, we found located about a hundred\nfeet distant from the other and lower down. On the second day\nthe large one was blocked up ready for transportation, and the\nsmaller one rolled upon a rough sledge made of three spruce poles,\nand on this dragged by the combined force of the ship's crew and\nmy native allies over the boulders and down the snowdrift to\n- Hauling the \"Dog\" across the Bay Ice.\nthe shore; then ferried across the open water upon a cake of ice,\nand finally hauled for a distance of about a mile over the surface\nof the ice in the Bay to the ship's side, where it was hoisted on\nboard and deposited in the hold.\nOn the third day a heavy timber drag was constructed for the\nlarge aerolite upon which it was placed and secured, then slowly\ntransported upon tron rollers over a rough plank tramway laid\nalong a rude road bed, which the Eskimos had graded for me by roll-\ning away stones in places, and in others filling them in. In this\nway the aerolite was brought to the upper end of the snowdrift.\nThen after midnight when the surface of this drift was frozen\nfirmly, it was moved down to the shore where a huge cake of ice\n40 ft. long by 20 ft. wide by 7 ft. thick had been securely\nmoored to receive it. Upon this novel ferry boat it was floated\nacross the open water to the bay ice where a dock had been cut to\nreceive it. Once on the bay ice progress was continued upon roll-\ners running on a plank tramway until within a half a mile from\nthe ship, when the work was expedited by splicing all spare ropes\ntogether and carrying them out from the ship, using the winch for\ntractive power. As soon as the prize was alongside all possible\nspeed was made in hooking on to it with the ship's tackles and\npurchases; but before this could be completed the ice gave way\nunder the great weight, leaving the aerolite only partially se-\n- Transporting the \"Woman\" over the Boulders on Rollers.\n43\ncured. Fortunately, however, the lines and chains already fas-\ntened tough it were strong enough to hold it, though insufficient\nto lift it, and finally, although nearly submerged by the listing\nof the \"Kite\" under the unbalanced load, additional lines were\nattached and the aerolite slowly warped up to the rail and swung\ninboard Every one breathed a sigh of relief when the sulky\ngiant was safely deposited in the hold.\nwwith the two aerolites safely on board, the \"Kite\"\nproceeded to Cape York and thence to St. John's, Newfoundland, in\nsafety, though the presence of these unusual masses of iron af-\nan\nfected our compasses to such, extent, that whenever thick or stormy\nweather compelled us for any length of time to depend upon our\ndead reckoning, it was found impossible to keep on our course.\nFrom St. Johns, Newfoundland, the aerolites were transported\nby steamer to New York, aand thence taken to the American Museum\nwhere they have since remained.\n- The Ice Ferry Boat.\n-The Kite rammed into the Ice to receive the \"Saviksue\"\n46\nDescription of the \"Saviksue\" and Site.\nThe \"Dog\" in Situ.\nThe \"Dog\" raised slightly.\n49\nDescription of the \"Saviksue\" and Their Site\nThe smaller of thettwo aerolites (the \"dog\") is an ir-\nregular ellipsoidally rounded mass with dimensions 27 1/2 in.\nby 19 1/2 in. by 10 in.; an estimated bulk of two cubic feet;\nand an estimated weight of 1000 lbs.\nWhen found it was lying loosely upon the surface among the\ngnéissose rocks of the vicinity, and though the natives tell me\nthat it has been used but little because it is harder than the\nother, it certainly seems to have been pounded sufficiently to de-\nstroy nearly or quite all of its original surface.\nIt was situated 80 ft. above, and 1625 ft. distance from,\nhigh water mark.\nThe large aerolite (the \"woman\") has an irregular rounded\ntrapezoidal shape with a circumference of 11 ft.; a maximum length\nof 4 ft, 3 in.; a maximum width of 3 ft. 3 in.; and a maximum\nthickness of 2 ft. Its estimated bulk is 12 cub. ft. and its\nestimated weight 6000 lbs. It was situated 96 ft. distance from,\nand 21 1/2 ft. higher than the small aerolite.\nIts entire upper portion has been worked and pounded by the\nEs kimos through many generations, until all the original surface\nhas been removed. A well defined and cont inuous rough burr of\nmetal like that round the hesd of a stone drill (the result of\nthe pounding) extends along the original ground line of the mass\nThe \"Woman\" in Situ.\nis\nParition of the\"Waman\"\nCrest of Pile\nToo of Pile\nUpper Edge of of Pile\nPile of Trap Cobbles about the \"Woman\". .\n52\nand shows clearly how much of it projected from the ground. The\nunder part preserves the original exterior characteristics of the\naevolite.\nThis specimen when discovered lay slightly imbedded or per-\nhaps indented in the coarse material at the bottom of a shallow\nsaucer-shaped depression, formed partly by the efforts of the na-\ntives, and partly by the piling up of the trapt stones brought by\nthem during many generations for use as hammers.\nThe circumference of this pile of stones at the base is some\n60 yds., and its height from the toe of the down hill slope to the\ntop is 18 or 20 ft. The contrast between the smooth, rounded\ngreenish trap cobbles and the rough angular lichen covered gray\ngneissose rocks of the vicinity, is very striking. When viewed\nfrom across the valley, one is reminded of the pile of debris us-\nually to be seen at the mouth of a mine shaft.\nThe surface of both aerolites is dark brown in color\ninterspersed with greenish pits, and resembles bronze. To the\neye the appearance of the metal seems the same in both, a dense\ntough fibrous soft iron or mild steel, with silvery luster and res-\nonant as a bell. The homogeneousness of the metal is surprising.\nThere is apparently not so much as a single grain of any foreign\nsubstance in the entire mass of both aerolites. The metal can be\ncut with a knife, and when scraped with knife or file shows a\nbright silvery luster. Etching with acid brings out the char-\nacteristic Widmanstattian figures, and analyses show the typical\n53\naerolitic nickel-steel alloy, the composition being about 92 % of\niron and 8 % of nickel. Similar, however, as the two are in\nappearance, I am convinced that there is a pronounced difference\nin the amiability of the metal; the larger being the softer. The\nstatements of the natives are unvarying on this point, and their\nstatements are borne out by the huge pile of broken trap cob-\nbles surrounding the large aerolite, while scarcely a score of\nthese stones was scattered about the smaller one.\nIt seems almost certain that both of these masses are\nfragments of the same celestial body. If this be so, the differ-\n08\nence in hardness on which the Eskimos insist, is probably due to a\nprocess of tempering, variations in which were caused by the dif-\nference in size of the two masses and the resultant differing\n0d\ntemperatures, when at the end of their descent, they plunged into\nthe snow and ice.\nThat there are additional specimens unknown to the\nnatives I doubt, as nothing escapes the Eskimo eye, and in the\nages that this tribe has lived in its contracted Arctic prison,\nthere is not a stone on shore or mountain side, or summit, that\nhas not been pressed by the foot of a fur clad hunter, and noted by\nhis quick eye.\nThe locality of these aerolites is near the head of one\nof the numerous bays which indent the northern shore of that\ngreat icy fastness Melville Bay. This bay terminates in a little\nrectangular cove, walled by a series of hills 300 to 600 ft. high.\nLOCATION OF, AEROLITES\nHead of Saviksoah Bay.\n55\nThis wall is continuous except at the eastern angle of the cove\nwhere a narrow gently sloping valley opens. Proceeding up this\nvalley for a few hundred yards one finds oneself on the divide of\na narrow isthmus separating the bay already mentioned from a\nglacier bay to the eastward; and uniting the mountains which\noverhang the head of the bay, with the bold and striking masses\nthat form its eastern shore and headland. The center of the\nisthmus is about 80 ft. above the sea level at its highest\npoint, and a few yards, north of this divide, on the southern slope\nof the mountain, lay the famous \"Saviksue\".\nStanding here the eye roams southward over the broken\nice masses of glacier bay, the favorite haunt of the Polar bear;\neastward across the glacier itself to the ebon faces of the\"Black\nTwins\"two beetling ice-capped cliffs which frown down upon the\nglacier; Northward to the boulder strewn slopes of a gneissose\nmountain; and westward over the placid surface of \"Saviksoah\nBay\"which presents a striking contrast to the berg chaos on the\nopposite side of the isthmus.\nIn winter this region is the desolation of Arctic des-\nolations, constantly harassed by biting winds, and with every\nrock deep buried beneath the snow which throughout the long dark\nnight, these winds sweep in from the broad expanse of Melville\nBay, piling it in drifts, which in many places are hundreds of\nfeet deep.\nThe Land (August) Looking from the \"Saviksue\",\n57\nEven in summer, only the directly southward facing slopes of\nthe mountains are free of snow for a few weeks, while in the val-\nleys and on the northward slopes, the drifts remain eternally.\nA large portion of the ice and bergs of Melville Bay\npass close along this coast in their slow drift westward toward\nthe southward Smith Sound current. Consequently the shore is\nblockaded with ice during about 11 months of even the most favor-\nable years, and the slightest increase in the severity of a season\nbeyond the normal, results in the coast being completely blockaded\nwith ice and rendered inaccessible throughout the entire year.\n11\n2\nThe Sea (August) Looking from the \"Saviksue\".\n59\nHistory, Notes and Speculations.\n60\nHistory, Notes and Speculations.\nThe authentic history of these interesting aerolites\ncan be told in a very few words. In 1818 Captain John Ross of the\nRoyal Navy discovered that the Arttic Coastsiin the vicinity of\nCape York were inhabited by a tribe of previously unknown Eski-\nmos. Much to his surprise he found in their possession iron,\nwhich they said they had obtained from great masses forming part\nof a mountain in their country. Pieces of this iron taken home\nby Captain Ross and analyzed, were found to contain nickel, in-\ndicating meteoric origin.\nVarious unsuccessful attempts to locate this iron were\nmade, as already noted, during the following seventy-six years, and\nthe discovery of the Nordenskjold irons at Ovifak, supposed at\nfirst to be meteoric, but subsequently determined to be of terres-\ntrial origin; gave rise to doubts as to the meteoric origin of\nthese other more northerly and semi-mythical irons.\nIn 1894, however, these irons were definitely located and ex-\namined by me, and in 1895 I visited them again in company with a\nto\ngeologist of National reputation and brought them home with me.\nTheir surroundings and peculiar and unmistakable characteristics,\nproved them to be beyond the possibility of a doubt of true mete-\noric origin. Since their arrival in this country they have been,\nthrough the courtesy of the American Museum, on deposit in its\nbuilding\n61\nbuilding. The historical data to be obtained from the natives\nin regard to the aerolites is rather scanty. According to them\nthe \"Saviksue\" (great irons) have been where I discovered them\nHSO\nfrom time inmemorial; but that they were originally an Inuit\nIsvor\nwoman and her dog hurled from the sky by Tornarsuk (the Evil\nSpirit). They say that at first the larger aerolite was in shape\nlike a woman seated and sewing, but that the constant chipping\noff of fragments through successive ages, has gradually removed\nS to\nthe upper portion of her body and reduced her size one-half or\nSO\none-third. Years age her head became detached and a party of Es-\nkimos from Peterahwik or Etah (settlements north of Whale Sound)\nattempted to carry it away, actuated probably by the desire to\nhave a supply of the precious metal more convenient, and save\nthemselves the long and arduous journey to Cape York and into\nMelville Bay, when they needed to replenish their stock of iron.\nThe head was lashed upon a sledge and the party started for their\nhome, but when well out from the shore the sea-ice suddenly broke\nup with a loud noise, and the head disappeared beneath the water\ndragging down with it the sledge and dogs. The Eskimos themselves\nnarrowly escaped with their lives, and since that time no attempt\nhas been made to carry away any but the smallest fragments of the\nheavenly woman.\nThis mass is the one from which all the ancient iron\nsupplye of this people was obtained and the supposed statement\n62\nbtsyer\nof the natives to Captain Ross that one mass was composed princi-\npally of a black rock containing iron in the shape of small\nnodules imbedded in it, was a mis-interpretation. The hard, dark\nrock mentioned by the natives, a piece of which they gave Ross,\nS\nwas a piece of one of the trap cobbles used in hammering off\nflakes of the iron, and not a portion of the rocky matrix enclos-\ning the iron. For several generations, probably from the time of\nthe wintering of the \"North Star\" or possibly earlier, no use has\nbeen made of the iron of these aerolites by the natves; they prob-\nably obtaining their scant supply of knives from the whalers and\nexpedition ships visiting their coast or beset in the ice off\nCape York.\nSurprise at finding these little Hyperboreans on a par\nwith the Greeks, the Romans, the Cathaginians, and the devotees\nof Buddha, in their possession of a \"Heaven-stone\" is almost\nstartling in its intensity; yet surprise gives way to admiration\nas we note the shrewdness of these brown hunters of the \"Great\nNight\". The savage stress of natural environment in which the\nCreator placed them to struggle for existence, left them no room\nfor any S uch Platonic mæifestations as worship of the celestial\nguests. A Diana of Ephesus or Venus of Cyprus would be utterly\n63\nuseless to them. Nor, on the other hand, would any glittering\nblade, irresistible in conflict, appeal to them. Their sole and\never beseiging enemies were the Demons Hunger and Starvation;\nand so, with intense practicalness they pressed the \"goods the\ngods had sent them\" into their servce, in solving the, to them,\nfundamental equation of the problem of existence, the effort to\nobtain something to eat; and chipped their celestial guests to\npoint the harpoons that brought them food.\nLet us try and picture to ourselves the first use of the\niron from the\"saviksue\"\n.\nIt is in the late spring of several hundred years ago.\nOne of the most\nself reliant of the Cape York hunters has\ngone with his family into the depths of Melville Bay on a protract-\ned bear hunt, and led away by the excitement of the chase he re-\nmains until the sudden breaking up of the ice cuts off his retreat\nto the Cape.\nConstructing a rough stone shelter ( which it so happens\nis at the head of the bay where the brown woman\" from heaven and her\ndog lie) he covers it with the skins of seals which he captures,\nand lives in comfort through the summer, hunting industriously.\nWith the approach of winter he covers his hut deep with\nstones and snow, for although he could now reach Cap e York; all his\n64\nfood, the result of his summers hunting, is here, and here he must\nremain till spring.\nAll goes well with him through the long dark arctic\nnight till early in February, when the southern sky at noon shows\nfor a few hours the twilight of returning day. Then a she bear\nprowling along the shore gaunt with the winters hunger and accom-\npanied by her two cubs, scents and pounces upon his cache of seal\nmeat. Warned by the cries of his doge, the hunter attacks the\nrobbers with desperation, but is unable to prevent their carrying\noff all his remaining supply of meat, and is left with two of his\nbest dogs dead, and himself with a gaping claw slash in his side.\nWorse than all this, the old bear carries àway in her body his only\nflint harpoon head. He is left foodless and weaponless. His only\nchance is to try and reach Cape York through the darkness and\nsavage cold.\nBut now as if Tornarsuk (the evil one) was angered at\nhim, the devilish storms of the spring equinox set in, and for days\nand weeks the world is but an arctic inferno of blinding snow, dark-\nness, and deadly winds. When at last it clears and the sun\nglares coldly over the southward wilderness of bergs, glinting the\nfrost crystals in the air, and coloring the marble heights of the\nIce Cap pale yellow, our hunter and his family have eaten the last\n65\nmorsel of their last dog, and are starving upon fragments of the\nskins about their hut. Yet out upon the white surface of the\nbay are black spots which he knows are seals.\nHe attempts to find a stone that he can utilize for a\nharpoon-head, but the search is useless. Everything is covered\nwith the pitiless shroud of snow.\nHe gives up hope and is crouched in his freezing hut\nwaitin g for the end which will come very quickly now to his his\nwife and babies, when suddenly it flashes through his brain that\nthe previous summer while bringing a big seal upon his back across\nthe little isthmus behind his hut, he had sat down to rest upon the\n\"brown woman\" and there in the bright sunshine had idly tried to\nbreak off a fragment of her with a stone lying near. He had not\nsucceeded. yet he remembers vividly how when his hand slipped and\nstruck against the place where he had been pounding, a sharp\nedge had cut a deep clean gash in his flesh.\nWhy should this not do for his harpoon-head? A word to\nhis faithful wife and slave, and covering the children as best they\ncan with the remaining furs, the y climb the little valley and\nwith hands and feet remove the shrouding snow from the \"brown\nwoman\". Then with a rough stone he pounds and digs at a rough\npoint of her knee. When he tires his wife relieves him Soon\n66\nhowever the bitter cold of the fierce wind numbs them. They are\nlikely to freeze before the tedious work is done.\nBut though the flame of life burns wavering in the hunter\nhis brain spurred by the chance of life is still active. From his\nhut he brings a shoulderblade of his last dog, and with this rude\nimplement carves snow blocks and builds a low hut over the \"brown\nwoman's \" lap, just large enough for two kneeling persons. Shelter-\ned now from the cold he and his wife strive incessantly at the\niron. At last a tiny scale flies off. The man seizes it, draws\nthe edge across his bare finger, and laughs with joy as it cuts to\nthe bone. But one flake is not enough. So through the long\nhours the two toil till another and another has been loosened.\nThen while the woman sleeps exhausted, the man hastily\nyet with all care, fashions his harpoon-head, setting the bits of\niron along the point of a piece of bone, fits the bone to the\nshaft, and with feverish energy starte out upon the ice towards one\nof those tantalizing black spots.\nWhen still same distance away he lies down upon the snow\nand begins crawling towards the seal in the peculiar fashion of his\nrace. Now however weakness begins to tell upon him, and before\nhe gets within striking distance, he is obliged to stop for breath.\nThe seal takes fright and starts fr his hole in the ice. It is a\nmoment of agony for the starving hunter. The distance of the seal\n67\nis twice the range at which long experience has taught him his\nblunt flint headed harpoon would be effective. Still, with a des-\nperate effort he hurls his weapon at the animal. It reaches the\nmark just as the seal plunges into the water. The blow is weak,\nand yet the harpoon, its way cleft for it by the celestial metal,\ndrives home and the struggling seal is his. Starvation is. averted\nThe heavenly \"brown woman\" has given the dusky hunter full measure\nof sweet life, his own, his wife's, his children's.\nIt is not many days after this that he and his family,\nonce more strong and well fed, start for the great Cape, his pre-\ncious harpoon-head suspended by a rawhide thong in his bosom.\nArriving, his comrades who had given him up for dead,\ncrowd aroung him in surprise, which deepens when he draws the\ntiny weapon fron his bosom and tell them all his story.\nTheir surprise changes to awe and then to delight when\nlater he goes out upon the ice and, with his powerful arm, no longer\nweakened by hunger but in full vigor, they see him hurl his harpoon\nwith its tiny glistening point and transfix his seal, at three\ntimes the distance that their stone weapons would drive home.\nWith all the speed of wolfish dogs urged by adder like\nwhips, the wonderful news spreads through the tribe, and before the\nsun sets for the next long night, the point of every hunters har-\npoon is tipped with bits of the body of the \"brown woman\".\n68\nIn contemplating these brown masses a host of strange\nfancies, speculations and queries crowd upon one. Did man or the\naerolites first arrive in that inhospitable region? If the former,\nand the aerolites fell in the long, dark winter night, what terror\nthe detonations, the blinding glare, and the earthquake shock of\ntheir fall, must have caused among the poor savages cowering in\ntheir shaking stone and turf huts. Would it be strange if they\nhad thought that the sun itself had broken loose and was falling\nupon the earth, and that the earth was breaking up under the shock\nlike one of their own icebergs.\nIf the aerolites fell in summer how the seals must have\nplunged for the water, and the Polar bears rushed at full speed\n49\nover the ice floes floes, fear-stricken by the awful cataclysm.\nIf the arrival of the aerolites antedated that of man,\ndid they fall but a short time previous to his advent, or thous-\nands of years ago, during the glacial epoch, when this entire re-\ngion region was covered by an unbroken ice sheet?\nThe fact that the two aerolites when discovered were not\nburied in the ground, and that there were no indications of crush-\ning of the rocks beneath them or abrasion or indentation of the\nundersurfaces of the aerolites themselves; phenomena which must\nhave accompanied their direct fall upon the ground, would seem to\nindicate that they had originally descended upon the surface of\nthe then much expanded ice sheet, and upon its recession had grad-\nually settled to the positions in which they were found.\nOn the other hand, one of the enormous snow drifts which\nform along this coast even in ordimary winters, might have receiv-\ned the aerolites and cushioned their fall completely, allowing the\npresumably high temperature of the masses to effect their gradual\ndescent and final deposition upon the under-lying rocks.\nThe existence of the Eskimo legend already noted above\nin regard to these aerolites, lends color to the belief that their\narrival was subsequent to that of man; else how could these rude\nnatives have obtained any idea of their heavenly origin, and why\nshould not the brown masses have been to them simply \"Weeaksue\"\n(rocks) like all the others in their country, including the soap-\n70\nstones which have furnished them with material for their lamps\nand pots.\nNext, and to me most astonishing inexplicable, how did these poor\naborigines discover the qualities of the material composing the\nmasses, and the uses to which it could be put, and then devise means\nof availing themselves of it?\nFrom what I have seen of this people and their exhaustive\nknowledge of all the materials to be found in their country, and\nthe special qualifications of each; I am inclined to think that\nthese little brown wizards of the north have at one time or anoth-\ner during the past centuries, put through the laboratory of common\nsense and practical experience, every stone or other material in\nthe whole range of their observation, and settled for all time the\ncharacteristics, the qualities and capabilities of each; and\nwhere these capabilities could be used for their own benefit, have\ndevised means for SO utilizing them.\nThese particular masses have been the ready iron mine of\nthese northern men, beyond the control of any trust, from which\neach chipped his little fragments when a harpoon head, a lance\npoint or a knife was needed. It has been to them an exhaustless\nsource of utility; and through the centuries they have hammered\noff their little flakes, and gone away rejoicing with the small\nsplinters from Heaven's foundry thus laboriously secured.\nThe spectaøle of these little fur-clad children of the\n71\nice floes, using centuries ago a heaven invented alloy (nickel\nsteel) which all our own boasted civilization and enlightenment\nhas only recently devised, is a striking one.\nIn looking at these masses too, bewildering thoughts\narise as to their origin. The theory that they are the products\nof some furious volcanic eruption past or recent, is negatived by\nthe character of the alloy (nickel steel) which to the best of our\nknowledge exists nowhere in our globe, and because if nickel steel\nshould be so erupted, why not gold, or silver, or tin, or copper, or\nlead?\nAre they then the fragments of some ruined or disrupted\nother world and, if so, are there other similar worlds or comets\nor asteroids or bodies of some sort composed entirely of iron,\nstill intact and whirling through space? There seems reason for\nthinking so in looking at these masses and yet how could the in-\nhabitants manage with compasses and electrical currents upon a\nplanet composed of nickel iron? And, to use the words of a funny\nwriter on an English paper, \"What would it be like to rush through\nspace upon a ferruginous ball with no potato patch or turnip\nground softer than Bessemer steel?\"\nThe theory of Eastman and Miller seems to be more plaus-\nible; that these and similar masses of iron, (the siderites of the\ntext books were originally nodules scattered through the unoxyi-\ndized basic rock core of a shattered planet or planets, and that\nwhen fragments of these hurtling ruins enter the earth's atmos-\n72\nphere, the instantaneous and inconceivable leap in temperature\nshatters the brittle matrix of rock into dust or fragments so\nsmall as to be unheeded, while the tough metallic nodules reach the\nearth intact.\nThe whole subject remains to this moment mysterious,\nattractive, romantic and awe-inspiring, beyond all the guesses and\nattempted explanations of the wise.\n73\n.eren\nJJsn\n[ Isis\nNJT65\nosyth\nquatti\nProposed Group.\n75\nProposed Group in Connection with the \"Saviksue\".\nAcrolitos.\nThe proposed group shown on the opposite page represents\na scene of a hundred years or more ago as described and in part\nre-enacted for me by some of the older men of the present gener-\nation.\nIt is late in July and the midnight sun of the Arctic summer,\nwhich has known no setting since early in May, has shone incess-\nantly upon the southward sloping mountian side on which the\nHeaven-born brown womanand her dog rest, until it has dissipated\nall the snow except the perennial BHOW drift filling the center\nof the valley in the foreground, and has raised the temperature\nof the woman to the point which the natives know by long exper-\nience will allow them to detach small fragments of the mass with\nthe least dificulty.\nOn the left (north) rises the slope of a mountain thickly\nstrewn with gneissose boulders; to the right (south) rise the\nblack rocks of another mountain; eastward in the background\nflows the groaning current of a great glacier, adding its count-\nfleet\nless, of bergs to the frightful icy chaos of Melville Bay; be-\nyond this rise the sheer black cliffs which confine the glacier,\ncrested by the eternal ice-capt\n76\nIn the foreground are the aerolites and two families of Eski-\nmos that are availing themselves of the opportunity to renew\nthe cutting edges of their knives and harpoon heads. One family\nconsisting of the father, mother, grown son and small child, has\ntaken possession of one of the numerous \"kangmah\" or small stone\nshelters constructed by their long-dead ancestors, and in front\nof this the woman is preparing a meal of seal meat which she is\nheating in a stone pot over a stone lamp. The child stands near\nher eating a piece of the raw meat.\nKneeling beside the aerolite is the young man, with one of the\nrounded trap stones grasped in both hands. With this he is en-\ngaged in the arduous labor of laminating some small prominence O\nof the aerolite by continuous pounding in the same spot, until a\nsmall flake becomes partially separated and can be removed.\nThe father, seated upon his sledge, which for convenience\nhas been drawn near the aerolites, is engaged in the skilled\nlabor of joining and fitting the bits of iron detached by-his\nson into the groove of a bone handle to form as continuous a\ncutting edge as possible. The dogs of this family, four in\nnumber, are tied to one of themmerous gneissose boulders in\nthe background.\nThe second family has just arrived 2 and comprises a man, his\nwife, and a baby, carried in the mother's hood. While the man is\nuntangling the traces of his dogs, three in number, preparatory\n77\nto tying them to a rock, the woman brings up from the sledge\nan armful of the rounded trap stones which they gathered a hun-\ndred miles or more up the coast, for use as hammers upon the\n\"Saviksue\". Upon the sledge may be seen in addition to these\nstones, the meat of a seal just killed on the bay below, which\nwill insure an ample supply of food for the entire party during\nthe several days that they must remain in order to obtain their\nmeager supply of the precious iron.\nIt is intended that this group shall be constructed\nwith absolute fidelity to the original, and that it shall be\ncomposed in every detail of actual material brought from the\noriginal locality.\nIn addition toethe aerolites themselves, a considerable quan-\ntity of the trap stones and lichen covered gneissose boulders\nhave been brought back, and still more will be obtained.\nAll the costumes will be the real article taken directly\nfrom the natives, and the figures themselves will be reproduc-\ned from casts made from living individuals in the tribe.\nThe dogs will be actual teams purchased from the natives and\nmounted for this express object, and the two ancient knives\nnoted above, the only ones in existence made from the iron of\nthese aerolites, will appear in the group.\nThe background will be painted from photographs and sketches\nOF\nE\nTHE\n78\nby an artist who has actually visited the locality, and made his\nINTITE\nstudies on the spot for the definite purpose of this proposed\n[Im both\ngroup.\nrexives\nBenote\n$\n98\noff\nregsen\nHJIW\ncome\nylro\nJIJ\nVSN\n79\nDE\nIbste\nResume of Points of Special Interest.\nResume of Points of Special Interest.\n- O -\nFirst and foremost stands the ethnological or human\nassociations of these aerolites. They have assisted in the\nprogress of an entire aboriginal tribe, and that tribe not\nonly the most northerly one upon the earth, but probably the\nsmallest as well, and to me the most interesting.\nSecond, is their size. With the exception of the\nlarge Cranbourne sidežite in the British Museum, weighing\nsome 8000 lbs., the larger of these two aerolites (the\n\"woman\") far exceeds the largest in any of the other great\nmuseums of the world. The gems of the National Museum, the\nParis Museum, the Yale College Museum, and the Field Colum-\nbian Museum, weigh respectively 2500 lbs. (estimated); 1709;\n1630, and 1013 lbs.; while the largest in the Museums of\nVienna and the University of Bonn, are still smaller.\nThird in order comes the fact, that they are literally\nand absolutely complete specimens, no individual or museum\npossessing the least fragment of either. In this respect\nthey are unapproachable.\nThe seizure and utilization of their exceptional fitness\nfor the central idea of a dramatic yet scientifically\n81\naccurate group, will result in an unique and imperishable ex-\nhibit; impossible of duplication and of such compelling and\nincisive interest both scientifica and popular, that it must\nper force head every catalogue of famous aerolites, and must\nbe included in every reference to the chief treasures of great\nmuseums. Such group will be as interesting and instructive as\nCleopatra's Needle; and more valuable because impossible of\nduplication.\nAdditional points of interest are, the extremely high\nlatitude in which these aerolites were found: the peculiar phy-\nsical conditions existing in the locality of their discovery,\nthe bearing of these conditions upon the de tails of their ar-\nrival upon the earth; their wealth of suggestion of questions\nand speculations of the most attractive nature to the scientist\nthe virgin field they present as regards minute scientific\nstudy 1 no exhaustive analyses etc. etc. yet having been made;\nand the fact that for seventy-six years they have baffled all\nefforts to locate their hiding place, and have finally succumbed\nto American persistence.\nThis combination of charms renders these Cape York\naerolites or \"saviksue\" peerless and unique among a 11 the\nsiderites of the world.\nV.S. Nany"
}