The interior formed an excavation four feet nine inches below the ground level, with two receding step-like platforms. The lower square floor space 26 feet by 26 feet 9 inches, constituted the general living and working room common to all, except that portion in the rear and opposite the entrance, which was reserved for the use of the house chief, his immediate family and most distinguished guests. This was the place of honor in all Tlingit houses upon all occasions, ceremonial or otherwise. The flooring of heavy, split, smoothed planks of varying widths extended around a central gravelled fireplace six feet by six feet and a half, where all of the cooking was done, over a wood fire which also heated the house in winter. In front of and a little to the right of the fire space entered by a small trap door in the floor barely large enough to admit a person, was a small cellar-like apartment used as a steam bath, by heating boulders in the nearby fire, dropping them on the floor below with split wood tongs, and pouring water upon them to generate the vapor when the bather entered and the opening was covered over. The first platform extending around the main floor at an elevation of 2-3/4 feet, comparatively narrow, with a width of 2-1/2 feet along the sides, and slightly more at the ends, served both as a step, and a lounging place in the daytime, and that in front, broken by the steps descending from the doorway, was utilized for firewood, fresh game, fish, water baskets, and such larger household articles and implements as were in general use. The retaining walls of this platform consisted of four heavy hewn spruce timbers approximately 27 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 5 inches thick, and so fitted with mortise and tenon at opposite ends that they supported each other without artificial fastenings. The faces of these timbers were beautifully finished in the finest adze work, and those on either side and at the back were carved in low relief to represent a remarkable extended figure, neither wholly human nor animal, with widely outstretched arms and legs, painted in red. It may be that the artist conceived and executed this form merely as a decorative feature, without meaning, or if it was his purpose to present a recognizable figure he followed that characteristic and well established privilege of native art in exaggeration to make the subject conform to the decorative field. The old chief, Yehlh-guou, "Raven's slave," said that the figure symbolized "Kee-war-kow" the highest heaven where those who were killed in war and died violent deaths went, and are seen at play in the Aurora Borealis. Another explanation is that it merely represented a man warming himself before the central fire. (Plate 1.)