The Asiatic Chukchi umiak is somewhat similar to that used on the American coast but with less beam in proportion to its length and less flare to the sides. The skin cover is of bearded seal. Bogoras measured an example and found her 35 feet 9 inches long, 4 feet 6 inches wide amidships, 2 feet 6 inches wide on the bottom over the chines. (An Alaskan umiak measured 34 feet 9 inches long, 8 feet 2 inches wide at gunwales and 2 feet 8 inches over the chines.) The Chukchi also use a very small hunting umiak, 15 to 18 feet long and having two or three thwarts, much like the small hunting umiaks once used in the Aleutians. The larger Chukchi umiaks have rectangular sails set on a pole mast; some boats carry a square topsail. The sails are lashed to their yards and the lower sail, or "course," is controlled by sheets and braces. The topsail, when used, has braces only. The sails were formerly of reindeer skins, but now drill is used. These umiaks were formerly paddled, as indicated by their narrow beam, but since the advent of the white man oars have come into use, and it is quite certain that the topsail also is the result of white man's influence, if not the whole rig. In stormy weather some of these umiaks and also some of those in Alaska employ weather cloths, 18 or 20 inches high above the gunwales, raised on short stanchions lashed to the hull frames. The ends of the stanchions are inserted in slits in the top of the weather cloth, and in fair weather the cloths are folded down inside the gunwale out of the way. Also in some of these Asiatic and Alaskan umiaks, inflated floats, of seal skin, are lashed to the gunwales to prevent capsizing in a heavy sea. The Alaskan umiaks varied much in size but are rather similar in form. The small hunting umiaks used by the Aleuts are about 18 feet long, while the large cargo carrying umiaks range up to about 40 feet long, so far as available records show. They are marked by heavily flared sides and often have a rather strong sheer; a few, however, are rather straight on the gunwales. Nearly all existing models and boats were built since 1880; and no information is now available on the forms and dimensions of earlier craft. On page 184 is a drawing of a small umiak, used in walrus hunting, from the Alaskan coast in the neighborhood of the Aleutians. In the U.S. National Museum are the remains of a similar boat obtained in 1888 from Northern Alaska. This type of small umiak is also employed in fishing and is rather widely used as a passage boat for short voyages along shore. These craft, propelled by paddles, are primarily fast, handy hunting canoes rather than boats for migration or cargo-carrying. For this reason they are quite sharp-ended and shallow. The construction of this example will serve to illustrate the methods common to this type.