xu.] THE FIRE-DRILL. 489 



regarded it as a very precious thing, and I could not persuade 

 him to part with it. On the supposition that the metal of the 

 clumsily hammered pieces of iron might possibly be of meteoric 

 origin I purchased as many of them as I could. But the ex- 

 amination, to which they were subjected after our return, 

 showed that they contain no traces of nickel. The iron was 

 thus not meteoric. 



The flint consists of a beautiful chalcedony or agate, which 

 has been formed in cavities in the volcanic rocks which occur so 

 abundantly in north-eastern Asia, and which probably are also 

 found here and there as pebbles in the beds of the tundra 

 rivers. As tinder, are used partly the woolly hair of various 

 animals, partly dry fragments of different kinds of plants. The 

 steel and a large number of pieces of flint are kept in a skin 

 ])ouch suspended from the neck. Within this pouch there is a 

 smaller one, containing the tinder. It is thus kept warm by 



FIRE-DRILL. 



One-eighth of the natural size. 



the heat of the body, and protected from wet by its double 

 envelope. Along with it the men often caiTy on their persons 

 a sort of match of white, well-dried, and crushed willows, which 

 are plaited together and placed in even rolls. This match 

 burns slowly, evenly, and well. 



The other sort of fire-implement consists of a dry wooden 

 pin, which by a common bow-drill is made to rub against a 

 block of dry half-blackened wood. The upper part of this pin 

 runs in a drill block of wood or bone. In one of the tools 

 which I purchased, the astragalus of a reindeer was used for 

 this purpose. In the light-stock holes have been made to give 

 support to the pin, and perhaps to facilitate the formation of the 

 half-carbonised wood-meal which the drilling loosens from the 

 light-stock and in which the red heat arises. When fire is to 

 be lighted by means of this implement, tlie lower part of the 

 drill pin is daubed over with a little train-oil, one foot holds 



