122 Dr King on the Industrial Arts of the Esquimaux. 



Polar Sea, agree with those of Kotzebue Sound* and Labra- 

 dor,! except in the projection of the poles above the skins. 

 Sir Edward Parry states this to be the fact at the River 

 Clyde ; and we may infer, therefore, that Mr Henry Ellis 

 and Dr Richardson are right, although they have made no al- 

 lusion to this peculiarity in their respective narratives. 



Egede and his commentator Crantz inform us, that the na- 

 tives of Greenland, who cover^their tents wholly with seal- 

 skin, form the entry with seal-gut, which, from its trans- 

 parency, answers the purpose of a window, a contrivance un- 

 necessary with the highly translucent walrus skin. The 

 tents sometimes contain two families, if they are related, or 

 a double tent is formed by joining the mouths of two single 

 ones, and making the opening on one side. Sir John Frank- 

 lin discovered a tent to the westward of the Mackenzie, ca- 

 pable of holding forty persons, supposed to have been a trad- 

 ing establishment. 



Besides the sleeping place, there is but little standing room 

 in the tent ; as on one side is the larder, — an accumulation 

 of flesh, blubber, bones, birds, eggs, &c., which lie at the 

 mercy of the heels of all that enter ; but the careful tread of 

 the inmates enables them to avoid that which the stranger 

 in the land finds a difficult task. Sir Edward Parry's 

 party were not so sure-footed, and the juices of these arctic 

 luxuries, we are told, " formed an intolerable filthy mud on 

 the floor ;" and thus the Esquimaux had good reason to com- 

 plain of their soi-disant more civilized brothers, whose awk- 

 wardness not only destroyed their carpet of earth, but de- 

 prived them of a portion of their very scanty winter store. 



There are two kinds of boats in use, the caiak or man's 

 boat, and the oomiak or woman's boat, which are admirably 

 adapted to meet the circumstances in which they are placed. 

 Division of labour is not, nor ever likely to be, established 

 among this isolated family ; every man, therefore, is his own 

 boatbuilder ; and it is no mean test of intelligence, to find it 

 admitted by all, that the most practised civilized artisan 



* Kotzebue. t Probisher. 



