CRUISE OF STEAMER CORWIN IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN. 119 



make the clothing. The process of tanning is very simple and effective. It consists in drying the 

 skin in the open air, then removing with a scraper of flint or iron all the particles of flesh and 

 muscular fiber that remain attached, after which the skin is rubbed with the hands until it is per- 

 fectly soft and pliable, then willow or alder bark, scraped fine and soaked in water, is rubbed on, 

 care being taken to prevent its coming in contact with the hair. When dry it is ready for use, the 

 flesh side presenting a rich terra-cotta color. The skins taken from the animals killed in sum- 

 mer are preferred for clothing, while those taken in winter are used for tents and sleeping-rooms, 

 and also for bedding. These are not tanned but only dried. 



The Tchuktchis make an undergarment of the skins of the unborn young; it is exceedingly 

 soft and pliable, and very much prized by them. Many of the garments manufactured by the 

 women belonging to the wandering deer tribes of Siberia display a good deal of taste and marvel- 

 ous patience in their arrangement. A garment in the possession of the writer has a border round 

 the bottom 8 inches in depth, containing 1,800 pieces of deer-skin, with an aggregate length of 

 300 feet, all neatly sewed together with the sinew of the animal, the different colors so arranged 

 as to form the whole into a very ueat and original design. This is no unusual case ; indeed, these 

 garments are rarely seen without some ornamentation upon them. 



The antiquity of the reindeer is not one of the least interesting features in relation to it. Far 

 back in the Quaternary period, when the climate of Europe, as geologists assure us, resembled 

 that of the polar regions of the present time, the reindeer was present as the contemporary of the 

 hairy mammoth, the hairy rhinoceros, the horse, the aurochs, and the gigantic deer, together with 

 the cave animals, bear, wolf, and hyena. The true reindeer epoch, however, did not begin until 

 after the second advance of the glaciers into the valleys of Europe — the second Glacial era — when 

 it made its appearance in great numbers and covered a large area. A few hairy mammoths and 

 other animals were still alive, but it is probable that the reindeer was by far the most largely repre- 

 sented numerically of the fauna of that period. Indeed, geologists tell us that the horse and 

 reindeer furnished the principal articles of food for the men of the reindeer epoch. A fragment 

 of a reindeer's skull which still contained the stone arrow-head with which the animal was slain 

 shows that the men of that day hunted and killed the reindeer in much the same manner as the 

 Innuit of to-day. 



There are many other points of resemblance between these people so widely separated hy years, 

 showing that they were in much the same state of advancement towards civilization, and equally 

 dependent upon the reindeer for support. Their implements of stone, ivory, bone, and horn, their 

 rude pottery and their slight advancement in the art of delineation as evidenced by the rude figures 

 of men, reindeer, horses, and other animals engraved upon the tusks of the elephant and horns of 

 the reindeer found in the south of France, England, and Wales ; their custom of depositing with 

 the dead articles used by the deceased, such as hunting implements and articles which must have 

 been used as charms or ornaments; in all these respects they are like the people inhabiting the 

 reindeer regions of our day. 



Sir Charles Lyell says of these discoveries : 



If the fossil memorials of Auriquoe have been carefully interpreted; if we have here before us at the northern 

 base of the Pyrenees a sepulchral vault with skeletons of human beings consigned by friends and relatives to their 

 last resting-place; if we have also at the portal of the tomb the relics of funeral feasts aud within it indications of 

 viands destined for the use of the departed on their way to a land of spirits, while amongthe funeral gifts are weapons 

 wherewith in other fields to .base the gigantic deer, the cave linn, the cave bear, and woolly rhinoceros, we have at 

 last succeeded in tracing back the sacred rites of burial, and, more interesting still, a belief in a future state, to times 

 long anterior to those of history and tradition. 



With the reindeer people of our time, however, this same custom of placing articles in tombs 

 seems to be due to a superstitious dread of everything belonging to the dead. 



The love of personal adornment and the means used for gratifying it were much the same theu 

 as now, as showu by the bracelets and neckla:es composed of strings of shells aud of the teeth 

 and claws of carnivorous animals found with their remains. Even their disregard for cleanli- 

 ness, as shown by the accumulation of filth in the caves inhabited by them, bears out the 

 resemblance. The clothing worn by the men of the reindeer epoch, we are told, was composed 

 of deer-skin. The sinews of the deer were used for thread, and a piece of bone, pointed and per- 



