When we were searching for the missing whalers off the Siberian coast, some natives were come across with whom we were unable to communicate except by signs, and wishing to let them know the object of our visit, a ship was drawn in a note-book and shown to them, with accompanying gesticulations, which they quickly comprehended, and one fellow, taking the pencil and note-book, drew correctly a pair of reindeer horns on the ship's jib-boom--a fact which identified, beyond doubt, the derelict vessel they had seen. At Point Hope an Eskimo, who had allowed us to take sketches of him, desired to sketch one of the party, and taking one of our note-books and a pencil, neither of which he ever had in his hand before, produced the accompanying likeness of Professor Muir: [Illustration] At Saint Michael's there is an Eskimo boy who draws remarkably well, having taught himself by copying from the _Illustrated London News_. He made a correct pen-and-ink drawing of the _Corwin_, and another of the group of buildings at Saint Michael's, which, though creditable in many respects, had the defect of many Chinese pictures, being faulty in perspective. As these drawings equal those in Dr. Rink's book, done by Greenland artists, I regret my inability to reproduce them here. As evidences of culture they show more advancement than the carvings of English rustics that a clergyman has caused to be placed on exhibition at the Kensington Museum. Sir John Ross speaks highly of his interpreter as an artist; Beechy says that the knowledge of the coast obtained by him from Innuit maps was of the greatest value, while Hall and others show their geographical knowledge to be as perfect as that possible of attainment by civilized men unaided by instruments. I had frequent opportunities to observe these Eskimo ideas of chartography. They not only understood reading a chart of the coast when showed to them, but would make tracings of the unexplored part, as I knew a native to do in the case of an Alaskan river, the mouth only of which was laid down on our chart. Manifestation of the plastic art, which is found among tribes less intelligent, is rare among the Eskimo. In fact, the only thing of the kind seen was some rude pottery at Saint Lawrence island, the design of which showed but crude development of ornamental ideas. The same state of advancement was shown in some drinking cups carved from mammoth ivory and a dipper made from the horn of a mountain sheep. COMBATIVENESS.