square topped doorway leading into a corridor, as shown in the illustrations on this and the preceeding page and the theme is carried on each side to the end of the wall and round on the east and west walls for the space of three panels at present. The painter feels that to present it properly, the whole length of these side walls will not be too much. Immediately behind the hunter moon comes the two-months-long glowing twilight of the approach of winter, gradually darkening to the end; and before the fleeing maid, that of the coming summer, of the same length. The two seasons which divide the year are represented by the changing landscape and by the appropriate episodes of human life. The dividing line is the gap between the two central promontories in which appears the glow of the midnight sun, "untruthful," says the artist, "only in its lack of the brilliant intensity of nature." This we may believe, considering that such phenomena are practically unpaintable, and that he was further handicapped by his surroundings and by the glaring white placard which the Museum occasionally hangs in the doorway, immediately below the painting. To the left of Suk-eh-nuk appears the gradual lightening over land and sea which attends her re-appearance after the long night, one of the many color effects of this twilight; near the end of the wall, to the left, we are shown in the distance an iceberg, and beyond it a glacier with a typical bell-shaped rock called nunatak, "land rising above the ice." In the foreground, an Innuit is stalking two

ring seals which are basking in the sun, crawling slowly toward them, lance in hand, over the ice-floes, stopping when they look around, whistling softly, until he gets within striking distance. (See illustration on page 253.) To aid in preserving the unity of the long composition, the sea line is maintained at the same level on all three walls, rounding at the southern extremities for terminals. On the west wall, continuing the summer, and brilliant in color, the first panel gives in the foreground an Innuit hunter stalking a little group of reindeer, the nearest of which is white, and great bunches of blue and purple Arctic flowers grow in the recesses of the rocks below him. In the central panel, the largest, the Heart of Summer, another hunter, in his canoe, spears a narwhal; and in the third is seen in the rocky foreground a summer village at Cape York, Melville Bay. For all these details the painter can cite chapter and verse, showing his costumes and weapons, his sketches made on the spot, and full of light and color.

In the winter twilight, behind Ahn-ing-ahneh, we see in the foreground a bear hunt, the great white beast at bay with an arrow in his shoulder, and surrounded by the dogs while the hunter watches for his opportunity to finish him with a lance thrust. (See illustration on page 256. On the east wall, con

tinuing, the mountains catch the last rays of the sun; in the foreground of the first panel the hunter's family turn out of their snow igloo, the winter habitation, to welcome his return with his spoils; in the central, the Night, we find him boldly attacking the walrus on the sea-ice; in the third, he brings the welcome supply of walrus meat on his sled to the little white igloo village. This myth of the pursuit of the sister by the brother, we are told, is not only an allegory of the great Arctic Day and Night, but also of man's ceaseless search after the unattainable, which may tend to enlarge our ideas concerning the Esquimo mind.

All this material was accumulated by the painter only by constant observation and untiring industry, under the usual unfavorable circumstances of Arctic life, while his palette thumb scorched in the summer sunshine and his palette fingers froze in the shadow underneath. In his studio at Bowdoin Bay, 77° 44′ N., he worked for fourteen months, accommodating himself to the primitive conditions of Esquimo life.

As it is not possible with pigments adequately to represent the utmost splendor of light and color, such as blazes in the Polar skies and glows in the Polar, translucent ice, the most that can be justly required of the painter is that he suggest these unutterable things, and to this

credit Mr. Stokes is quite entitled. For his trying task he, fortunately, had had sound training, under Thomas Eakins in the Philadelphia Academy of the Fine Arts; under Gérôme in the École des Beaux-Arts; at Cola Rossi's under Raphael Collin, and at Julien's under Boulanger and Lefebvre. During his residence at Paris he exhibited at the Salons for several years; he joined the Peary Relief Expedition as artist for the house of Charles Scribner's Sons, and was the official artist of the Peary North Greenland Expedition. That strong craving to return to the North, which seems to take possession of all Arctic explorers in time, having visited him on his return, he sought to obtain means to fit out an expedition of his own, and, failing in this, funds were secured for this mural decoration through the generosity of Mr. Arthur Curtis James, with the hearty coöporation of the late President of the Museum, Mr. Morris K. Jesup, and that of the Director, Mr. H. C. Bumpus, the Museum furnishing the canvas and the stretchers.

In his list of honors is recorded a membership in the Anthropological Society, in the Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia, the Geographical Society of Philadelphia, the Geographical Society of Paris, the Arctic Club, and the silver medal, the prix Alphonse de Montherot. WILLIAM WALTON.