Monica Lou Thomas, age 7, of Ashland, Neb., for her question:

How did the Eskimos get to America?

You can find the continents of Asia and North America in your gift Atlas. They are separated by the wide Pacific Ocean, but at the far north the two continents are separated only by the narrow Bering Strait. This was not always so. North America and Asia once were joined by a bridge of land, and the first Americans came here from Asia across this land bridge. And the original Americans were the Indians and the Eskimos.

Only a few came at first and perhaps wandered down through North America or far to the East. Later more and more left Asia to become Americans. Some of the wandering tribes went far down into South America and others populated Mexico and Central America. But some of the first Americans did not wander far from the land bridge. They stayed in the far north and became the Eskimos.