In stature these people are of a medium height, robust and muscular, “inclining rather to spareness than corpulence,”[N13] though the fullness of the face and the thick fur clothing often gives the impression of the latter. There is, however, considerable individual variation among them in this respect. The women are as a rule shorter than the men, occasionally almost dwarfish, though some women are taller than many of the men. The tallest man observed measured 5 feet 9½ inches, and the shortest 4 feet 11 inches. The tallest woman was 5 feet 3 inches in height, and the shortest 4 feet ½ inch. The heaviest man weighed 204 pounds and the lightest 126 pounds. One woman weighed 192 pounds and the shortest woman was also the lightest, weighing only 100 pounds.[N14] The hands and feet are small and well shaped, though the former soon become distorted and roughened by work. We did not observe the peculiar breadth of hands noticed by Dr. Simpson, nor is the shortness of the thumb which he mentions sufficient to attract attention.[N15] Their feet are so small that only one of our party, who is much below the ordinary size, was able to wear the boots made by the natives for themselves. Small and delicate hands and feet appear to be a universal characteristic of the Eskimo race and have been mentioned by most observers from Greenland to Alaska.[N16] [Footnote N13: Simpson, op. cit., p. 238.] [Footnote N14: See Report of Point Barrow Expedition, p. 50, for a table of measurements of a number of individuals selected at random from the natives of both villages and their visitors.] [Footnote N15: Op. cit., p. 238.] [Footnote N16: Davis (1586) speaks of the “small, slender hands and feet” of the Greenlanders. Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc. (1589), p. 782. “Their hands and feet are little and soft.” Crantz, vol. 1, p. 133 (Greenland). Hands and feet “extremely diminutive,” Parry 1st Voy., p. 282 (Baffin Land). “Their hands and feet are small and well formed.” Kumlien Contrib., p. 15 (Cumberland Gulf). “Feet extraordinarily small.” Ellis, Voyage, etc., p. 132 (Hudson Strait). Franklin (1st Exp., vol. 2, p. 180) mentions the small hands and feet of the two old Eskimo that he met at the Bloody Fall of the Coppermine River. “. . . boots purchased on the coast were seldom large enough for our people.” Richardson Searching Exp., i, p. 344 (Cape Bathurst). “Their hands and feet are small.” Petroff, Report, etc., p. 134 (Kuskoquim River). Chappell (Hudson Bay, pp. 59, 60) has a remarkable theory to account for the smallness of the extremities among the people of Hudson Strait. He believes that “the same intense cold which restricts vegetation to the form of creeping shrubs has also its effect upon the growth of mankind, preventing the extremities from attaining their due proportion”!] [Illustration: FIG. 1. Unalina, a man of Nuwŭk.]