The houses in the Kuskokwim region are quite similar to those just described, but are said to be built above ground in the interior, though thy are still covered with sods.[N141] There are no published accounts of the houses of the St. Lawrence islanders, but they are known to inhabit subterranean or partly underground earth-covered houses, built of wood, while the Asiatic Eskimo have abandoned the old underground houses, which were still in use at the end of the last century, and have adopted the double-skin tent of the Chukches.[N142] In addition to the cases quoted by Dall, Capt. Cook speaks of finding the natives of St. Lawrence Bay in 1778 living in partly underground earth-covered houses.[N143] [Footnote N141: Petroff, Report, etc., p. 15.] [Footnote N142: See Dall, Cont. to N. A. Ethn., vol. 1, p. 105. Mr. E. W. Nelson tells me, however, that the village at East Cape, Siberia, is composed of real iglus.] [Footnote N143: Third Voyage, vol. 2, p. 450.] _Arrangement in villages._--The village of Utkiavwĭñ occupies a narrow strip of ground along the edge of the cliffs of Cape Smyth, about 1,000 yards long, and extending some 150 yards inland. The houses are scattered among the hillocks without any attempt at regularity and at different distances from each other, sometimes alone, and sometimes in groups of two contiguous houses, which often have a common cache frame. Nuwŭk, from Dr. Simpson’s account[N144] and what we saw in our hurried visits, is scattered in the same way over the knolls of Point Barrow, but has its greatest extension in an east and west direction. From Simpson’s account (ibid.) double houses appear more common at Nuwŭk than at Utkiavwĭñ, and he even speaks of a few threefold ones. All the houses agree in facing south. This is undoubtedly to admit the greatest amount of light in winter, and seems to be a tolerably general custom, at least among the northern Eskimo.[N145] [Footnote N144: Op. cit., p. 256.] [Footnote N145: For example, I find it mentioned in Greenland by Kane, 1st Grinnell Exp., p. 40; at Iglulik by Parry, 2d Voy., p. 499; and at the mouth of the Mackenzie by Franklin, 2d Exp., p. 121, as well as by Dr. Simpson at Nuwŭk, op. cit., p. 256.] The custom of having the dwelling face south appears to be a deeply rooted one, as even the tents in summer all face the same way.[N146] [Footnote N146: Frobisher says the tents in Meta Incognita (in 1577) were “so pitched up, that the entrance into them, is alwaies South, or against the Sunne.” Hakluyt’s Voyages, etc., (1589) p. 628.]