184 



AN ESKIMO STKIKE-A-LIGHT. 



was the extreme difficulty and tediousness of getting fire in that way. 

 The Museum is in possession of a specimen of flint and pyrites from 

 Port Simpson, a station on the Upper Mackenzie Eiver. It was col- 

 lected from the Indians by B. B. Ross many years ago.* Another outfit, 

 consisting of a bag with pyrites and bark tinder, was collected in 

 Alaska by John J. McLean, and is presumably Iudian.t It is possible 

 that these throw some light on the Indian origin of some of the Eskimo 

 arts, a matter not unlikely to happen, as it is of common observation 

 that the Eskimo is adaptive and it is quite to be expected that there 

 would be reciprocal borrowing of useful arts by neighboring tribes. 



. G. French "Strike-a-light." 



The cigar lighter (Fig. 6), called a strike-a-light, purchased in Paris 

 by Mr. Thomas Wilson, is introduced here to show the survival of a 

 primitive custom. The inhabitant of the avenue de l'Opera, in the 

 " capital of civilization," and he of the shores of the frozen ocean touch. 

 One of the chief qualities of civilization is its adaptiveuess, and there 

 is no device of savage man which civilized man can not appropriate 

 and mold to his own use; but the remains of old usages and arts 

 stick to him and come down if not in ethnical sequence yet indirect 

 course from the man acquainted with the use and properties of flint, 

 for instance in the valley of the Somme. 



Museum N'<>. 128,405. Fire-making outfit, Cape Bathurst, E. P. Herendeen. 



' No. L,861. Fire-making outfit, Fort Simpson, British America, R. B. Ross. 

 t No. 60,232. Fire-making outfit, Alaska, .T.J. McLean. 



