The changes in house-building and dress referred to, which have come from contact with white men, are outward signs of a great modification in the lives of the Innuits, which began in the early days of Russian occupation and has continued with increasing importance to the present time. The natives are quick to imitate the customs of the strangers who have visited them, and but for the restraint that the climatic conditions have put upon them and the high price in furs demanded by traders for imported goods the changes thus produced would be far more marked than is now the case. To some extent the food of the natives has been modified, flour being in demand, but, with minor exceptions, the principal articles consumed are still such as are obtained by hunting and fishing. The greatest change that has taken place in the condition of the Alaskan Innuits, and one which, perhaps, culminated at the time of the recent "gold excitement" on the Yukon and at Cape Nome, is in relation to the introduction of intoxicating liquors and of certain contagious diseases. These scourges, coming from the south, have been almost as great a blight among the native peoples as would be the sweeping southward of a wave of arctic temperature to the vegetation of tropical lands. The _curse of contact_, resulting when a civilized race invades a land inhabited by childlike aborigines, as has been seen in many parts of the world, has overtaken the Innuits in common with nearly all other tribes in Alaska, and decadence and the prolongation of a miserable existence, unless cut short by extermination through starvation, is all that seemingly can be hoped for.