332 Professor Forbes’s Ninth Letter on Glaciers. 
superstitions. As far as we know, no kind of religious wor- 
ship exists amongst them. 
The dead are dressed in their best clothes, and conveyed, 
not by the regular entry, but through the window.* The per- 
sons performing these duties, put on gloves, and stop their 
nostrils with skin or hair. Infants have their feet placed to- 
wards the rising sun, or east; half-grown children south-east ; 
men and women in their prime with their feet to the meridian 
sun; middle-aged persons to the south-west; and very old 
people the reverse of children, or west.t It is customary to 
place weapons at the grave of a man, and culinary utensils 
and sewing materials at the grave of a woman;{ and in 
Greenland, according to Egede, the head of a dog is placed 
near the graves of little children, as a guide to the land of 
souls. Dishevelled hair, and abstinence from the duties of the 
toilette, and from all gaiety, for a time, is adopted as a mourn- 
ing rite ; and the graves of the departed are frequently visited. 
At Melville Peninsula, it is usual to walk round the grave in 
the direction of the sun, and to chant forth inquiries as to the 
welfare of the departed soul,— Whether it has reached the 
land of spirits? If it has plenty of food?§ At the funeral of 
the inhabitants of Greenland, it is usual for a woman to bran- 
dish a lighted stick, at the same time calling out—Piklerruk- 
pok, “ Here is no more to be got.” || 
Ninth Letter on Glaciers; addressed to Professor Jameson. 
Remarks on the Recent Observations made on the Glacier of 
the Aar (in 1844) by direction of M. Agassiz. By Profes- 
sor FORBES, F.R.S., Corresponding Member of the In- 
stitute of France. Communicated by the} Author. 
EDINBURGH, 7th March 1845. 
My D5AR Sir,—However satisfied one may be with the 
conclusiveness of their own experiments, it is always pleas- 
ing when they are confirmed by others even in their minuter 
* Lyon, 370; Egede, 153. + Lyon, 371. t Lyon, 371; Egede, 151. 
§ Lyon, 371. || Egede, 153. 
