' CANDLE-FISH. 95 
By each fire are four large square boxes, made 
from the trunk of the pine-tree. A squaw care- 
fully piles in each box a layer of fish about three- 
deep, and covers them with cold water. She 
then puts five or six of the hot stones upon the 
layers of fish, and when the steam has cleared 
away, carefully lays small pieces of wood over the 
stones; then more fish, more water, more stones, 
more layers of wood, and so on, until the box is 
filled. The oil-maker now takes all the liquid from 
this box, and uses it over again instead of water 
in filling another box, and skims the oil off as it 
floats on the surface. 
A vast quantity of oil is thus obtained; often 
as much as seven hundredweight will be made 
by one small tribe. The refuse fish are not yet 
done with, more oil being extractible from them. 
Built against the pine-tree is a small stage, made 
of poles, very like a monster gridiron. The re- 
fuse of the boxes, having been sewn up in porous 
mats, is placed on the stage, to be rolled and 
pressed by the arms and chests of Indian women; 
and the oil thus squeezed out is collected in 
a box placed underneath. 
Not only has Nature, ever bountiful, sent an 
abundance of oil to the redskin, but she actually 
provides ready-made bottles to store it away in. 
