ABSENCE OF CLEANLINESS. 495 



Although they had no knowledge of pottery, Captain Cook 

 saw at Oonalashka vessels " of a flat stone, with sides of clay, 

 not unlike a standing pie."* We here obtain an idea of the 

 manner in which the knowledge of pottery may have been 

 developed. After using clay to raise the sides of their stone 

 vessels, it would naturally occur to them that the same sub- 

 stance would serve for the bottom also, and thus the use of 

 stone might be replaced by a more convenient material. 



The natives of the Lower Murray cook their food in a 

 hollow in the ground, which they line with clay, and in other 

 cases gourds and wooden vessels are coated with clay in order 

 to enable them to stand heat. Thus we see three ways in 

 which pottery may have been invented. 



The snow- houses melt away every spring ; but in some 

 places the Esquimaux construct their dwellings on a similar 

 plan, but with the bones of whales and walruses on a founda- 

 tion of stones, and with a covering of earth. The snow-houses 

 are of course pretty clean at first, but they gradually become 

 very filthy. The bone huts are even dirtier, because more 

 durable. " In every direction round the huts," says Captain 

 Parry, "were lying innumerable bones of walruses and seab, 

 together with skulls of dogs, bears, and foxes, on many of 

 which a part of the putrid flesh still remaining sent forth the 

 most offensive effluvia." ( He even observed a number of 

 human bones lying about among the restj The inside of the 

 huts, " from their extreme closeness and accumulated filth, 

 emitted an almost insupportable stench, to which an abundant 

 supply of raw and half-putrid walrus flesh in no small degree 

 contributed." 



On the north-western coast of America the natives find 

 plenty of drift-wood, and the floors of their yourts are, ac- 



* Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, t See also Lyon's Journal, p. 236. 

 vol. ii. p. 510. Parry, 1. c. p. 358. 



t Parry, 1. c. p. 280. 



