Wager River Wall Bay Washington Bay Welcome, Rowe's Wellington Channel Whale Point Wheatley, R. Wilks, H. Williams, Mr. Wilmot Bay Winchester Inlet APPENDIX. INUIT PHILOLOGY. Perhaps no branch of Arctic research is of more interest to the scholar than the language of the people who inhabit that region. A careful comparison of the dialect of the different tribes is of great value in ascertaining their history, the origin of the race and the gradual extension of their journeyings to the remotest point from their native land yet reached by them. It is generally admitted that the North American Esquimaux are of Mongolian extraction; that at some period the passage of Behring Strait was affected and the immigrants gradually extended their migration to the eastward and finally occupied Greenland, where the mighty ocean headed them off and brought their wanderings in that direction to an abrupt termination. During what period of the world's history the exodus from Asia occurred is not known. There are those who believe it to have taken place when what is now known as Behring Strait was an isthmus, the shallowness of the water throughout that channel indicating the physical change to have been of comparitively recent date. This opinion was upheld by Lutke in his "Voyage Autour du Monde," vol. 2, page 209, and Whymper, in his work upon Alaska, page 94, alludes to the shallowness of Behring Strait and also of the sea so named, as permitting the whalers to ride at anchor in their deepest parts. Peschel in "Races of Man", page 401, prefers to believe that the transfer was made while Behring Strait still held its present character. There are not wanting authorities who seek to show that the entire Western Continent was thus peopled by immigration from Asia, and similarity of feature with the Mongolian is traced even to the most southern tribes of South America. The close connection between the "medicine men" of the Indians, the arng-ke-kos of the Esquimaux, and the shamans of Siberia and Brazil, are also quoted to show the probability of one origin. It is, however, in the language of the hyperborean races of America and Asia that the strongest proofs of a like origin is found. The Tshuktshi of Northern Asia, the Esquimaux of America, and the Namollo, all bear a very close relationship, especially in linguistic characteristics.