The Native Races of British North America

Although Eskimo tribes are to be found from Behring Strait to Greenland, and Indians anywhere between Vancouver Island and Newfoundland, the appearance of peoples in widely separated tribes is very much the same. All the Eskimo are short of stature (average height 5 ft. 2 in.), well built and sturdy, while the skin colour is a dark yellowish brown, not unlike the shade that characterises the Southern European. In some respects the Eskimo is not unlike an inhabitant of Mongolia, for at once a traveller would notice the broad face, high cheek bones, straight black hair, and oblique eyes. The head of an Eskimo is long in proportion to the breadth, and the very high vault enables a student to pick out an Eskimo skull from a great number of those belonging to other races. The North American Indians, too, are very uniform in appearance, and a native taken from one place could easily be mistaken for an inhabitant of some region far away; for in almost all cases there is the broad face, long well-shaped nose, and pointed chin.