560 EEPOKT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1889. 



REPTILES. 



CrocodilicUe. 



Crocodilua americanus Seba. Florida crocodile. Southern Florida. 

 Alligator mississippiensis Daudin. Alligator. Southeastern North America. 



Testudinidae. 



Testudo Carolina Linn. Florida gopher tortoise. Southeastern North America. 



Emydiae. 



Malacocli mniys paluslris (GmelinJ. Diamond-back terrapin. Coast from New York to 



Texas. 

 Pseudemi/8 rugosa (Shaw). Ked-bellied terrapin. New Jersey to Virginia. 

 Pseudenvys concinna (Leconte). Florida terrapin. Southeastern United States. 



SKIN-DRESSING AMONG THE ESKIMO. 



For the purpose of approaching this industry in its earliest and least 

 complex state a tew quotations from early travelers and explorers are 

 introduced. Grantz, in the history of Greenland (p. 1 67), speaks as 

 follows : 



"For their 'kapitck,' or hairy seal-skin clothes, they scrape the seal- 

 skin thin, lay it twenty-four hours in the 'korbik,' or urine tub, to ex- 

 tract the fat or oil, and then distend it for drying with pegs on a green 

 place. Afterwards, when they work the skin, it is sprinkled with 

 urine, rubbed with pumice-stone, and suppled by rubbing between the 

 hands. 



."(2) The sole leather is soaked two or three days in a urine tub; 

 then they pull off the loosened hair with a knife or with their teeth, lay 

 it three days in fresh water, and so stretch it for drying. 



u (3) In the same manner they prepare the ' eresak ' leather that they 

 use for the legs of boots and the overleather of shoes, only that it is 

 scraped very thin to make it pliable. Of this leather they also make 

 the sea-coats which the men draw over their other clothes to keep out 

 the wet when they go to sea. It is true it grows as soft and wet as a 

 dish-cloth by the salt water and rain, but it keeps the wet from the 

 undergarments. 



"(4) In the same manner they dress the ' erogak,' of which they make 

 their smooth black pelts to wear on shore, only in working it they rub 

 it between their hands; therefore it is not so stiff as the foregoing, but 

 loses the property of holding out water and is not fit for boots and sea- 

 coats. 



"(5) The boat-skins are selected out of the stoutest seal hides, from 

 which the fat is not quite taken off. They roll them up and sit on them 

 and let them lie in the sun covered with grass several weeks till the 

 hair will come off. Then they lay them in the salt water for some days 

 to soften them again. They draw the borders of the skins tight with 



