1036 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1896. 



tains food cooking for tlie family, and it is tlie woman's business to 

 keep it going. On ordinary occasions the Eskimo prefers cooked food, 

 for his digestive tract does not differ from that of other members of 

 the human family. Improper eating produces similar effects upon him 

 as upon more civilized people. When food is plenty it is true there is 

 great feasting, and it would seem in the absence of intoxicants the 

 torpor produced by gorging is the only method the Eskimo has of 

 reaching the Nirvana of the civilized. It has been observed that the 

 drinking of pure oil is not practiced with impunity by the Eskimo, 

 who as a rule only take it as medicine. 



Kumlein' is sufficient authority for the statement that "when the 

 Eskimo have been simmering meat, especially seal, in their boiling 



X)ots, they i)0ur off the liquor and 

 mix it with about an equal quantity 

 of blood; this makes a thick and 

 rather greasy soup that must be 

 quite nourishing; the children are 

 very fond of it. It seems possible 

 that from this dish has originated 

 the popular error that these people 

 '^ ■ drink oil, a notion that is simply 



SNOW MELTEE. ' ^ '' 



Anatoak. prCpOStcrOUS. 



(After Kane.) Thc Esklttio drluk gTcat quantities 



of water. It is curious that with 

 its world of congealed water the Arctic should be a veritable Sahara. 

 Water is usually supplied by melted snow or ice and the lamp is brought 

 into requisition for the purpose, though sometimes the warmth of the 

 hut is sufficient, especially if tlie vessel containing snow is placed near 

 the flame. Dr. Kane figures a snow melter of considerable ingenuity 

 which is reproduced here (tig. 2). Sometimes travelers carry water- 

 tight pouches containing snow, which they put under the clothing to be 

 melted by the heat of the body.'^ Mr. Astrup thus describes a method 

 of melting ice for drinking water: "At the side of the lump of meat 

 stood also a block of ice as clear as a crystal, whence the community 

 obtained water, as in the center of it a cavity had been cut, at the 

 bottom of which a stone was placed about the size of a man's fist, on 

 which there burned with a good flame a piece of moss intersected with 

 the blubber, and as the ice melted at the sides of the cavity the water 

 collected at the bottom in a small, clear pool, whence it was consumed 

 by the many parched mouths by sucking it up through hollow reindeer 

 marrow bones." •' 



'L. Kumlein, Nat. Hist, of Arctic America, Report .Smitlisonian Institution, 1879, 

 pp. 20, 21. 



^E. K. Kane, Arctic Exploration, I, p. 381. 



^Edwin Astrup, In the Land of the Northernmost Eskimo. Littell's Living Age, 

 No. 22701, from Fortnightly Review. 



