edwards] NATURE-PLAY IN THE MOUNTAINS 283 



hatchets. Dead-falls may be constructed from logs to entrap 

 animals for food and for clothing made from the tanned skins. 

 An animal may be skinned, a pit-fall dug, or a house built, with 

 a rock. One could cut through the largest redwood tree in Cali- 

 fornia with such a stone-age instrument although a month or 

 more might be required for the task. It is well for a boy to realize 

 that when lost in the forest he is not apt to have a tool-chest 

 hanging around his neck. An important function of nature- 

 study is to give adequate preparation for survival in the presence 

 of the catastrophies of life. 



The Indians have shown us how to kindle a fire by the friction 

 of one stick rubbed against another. With the string of a bow 

 coiled once and a half around the spindle which is held above by 

 a cap-piece and fitted below into the hollow of a bed-piece, a little 

 heap of fine dust is drilled out. In a minute or two smoke arises 

 then a spark appears in the dust and this may be blown against 

 the punk until the flame is born and fire has been made, just as 

 the aboriginals have kindled millions of fires in the two hundred 

 thousand years of their struggle toward civilization before matches 

 were invented. 



Our pupils have been taught to braid and weave. In any forest 

 long witch-grass from swampy places and the soft inner bark of 

 the fir, or the thin tough bark of young willows may be found. 

 From such materials rope is braided and mats, blankets, clothes 

 and hats woven. Even a kettle which will hold water may be 

 woven from fine grass, or made from a cylinder of bark sewed 

 together at the ends. In such a kettle it is easy to cook a 

 ground-squirrel, or rabbit stew by dropping in heated stones 

 until the savory food is ready to be served in bark dishes. 



At our city headquarters we have a nature room with electricity, 

 hot and cold water, sinks, gas-stoves and twenty work-tables. 

 Here any boy, girl, teacher, or citizen, is invited to come with the 

 raw material and make of it whatever pleases the fancy. Spread- 

 ing-boards for moths and butterflies and glass-covered insect 

 cases are constructed. Tanks are manufactured, either of glass 

 or cement and the plants and animals installed to form either a 

 fresh- or salt-water balanced aquarium. Gophers, moles and 

 ground-squirrels are trapped to stuff as museum specimens or to 

 tan their skins into leather. Thus we are able to demonstrate 

 that pests causing a loss of a million dollars a year in Southern 



