BOATS. SCRAPERS. 507 



boat."* It is, as he justly observes, an extraordinary thing 

 to find "a maritime and a fishing tribe unacquainted with 

 any means of floating on the water ;" but we must remember 

 that they had no wood, and that there were only a few weeks 

 in the year when the sea was unfrozen. No wonder that 

 Eoss's ships were mistaken for living creatures,"^ and that his 

 boats excited the most unbounded astonishment and admira- 

 tion. Kane alsoj confirms the absence of boats, but he adds 

 " that the kayak was known to them traditionally." 



In the preparation of skins the Esquimaux use certain 

 stone instruments (figs. 105 107), which have frequently been 

 overlooked on account of their simplicity, but which yet are 

 interesting because they are exactly similar to certain ancient 

 implements which are very common in various parts of Europe, 

 and have been already described in page 101. The collection 

 bequeathed by my lamented friend, Mr. Christy, to the nation, 

 and which is now in the British Museum, contains four of 

 these skin -scrapers, three of which were obtained . from the 

 Esquimaux north of Behring Straits. These are set in fossil 

 ivory. The fourth was found in a Greenland grave, probably 

 not older than the fifteenth century, and belonging to the 

 Stone period which supervened when the intercourse with 

 Norway was suspended. Some archaeologists had considered 

 that the "scrapers" were "probably knives, the prolonged 

 thick ends of which were intended for handles, to be held 

 between the finger and thumb, or possibly for attachment to 

 a short wooden shaft." The true nature and use of the 

 ancient skin-scrapers has, however, been entirely explained by 

 these modern specimens, with which they are absolutely iden- 

 tical. The method of preparing skins is curious and ingenious, 

 but very disgusting. 



* Ross, Baffin's Bay, p. 170. t 1. c. p. 118. 



t Arctic Explorations, vol. ii. pp. 135, 210. 

 See Archeeologia, vol. xxxviii. p. 415. 



