106 REPORT ON THE INTRODUCTION OF 



in the nostril, and, however careful one is in inhaling, he usually gets a 

 noseful, the effects of which are only lost after it passes away in the 

 floods of water that ooze from both nose and eyes. Occasionally an 

 Eskimo is found who practises this habit to excess, and he usually 

 carries a neatly engraved wooden box which contains his snuff, and 

 which he passes around among his friends on every convenient occasion. 



That the Eskimo at one time used stone instruments extensively in 

 their work upon wood there can be no doubt, for, although this prac- 

 tice has now become, with few exceptions, obsolete, there are occasion- 

 ally found adzes, hammers, and chisels, made of jade stone, and which 

 they will tell you are a great many years old. Although few natives 

 possess such a thing as an ax or hatchet, yet there are a few in every 

 village, and they answer very well the purposes for which they are used. 



The only stone tools now used are the knife for cutting skins, and a 

 sort of chisel for scraping hair or fur from them. The former is made 

 in the shape of a chopping knife and is usually of slate-stone, and an 

 edge can be put upon it sufficient for all such purposes. The women 

 use this knife very dexterously, and cut and fit pieces of skins as nicely 

 as though cut with scissors from a pattern. In using the stone, chisel, 

 or scraper, the hair is fiist covered with wood ashes, and these are 

 rubbed in among the roots, and, after being allowed to stand a short time, 

 seems to loosen it so that it is quite easily rubbed off. Sometimes an 

 iron instrument is used for this purpose, but stone is preferred because 

 the proper edge can be had upon it without being sharp enough to cut 

 into aud break the surface of the skin. 



Among the Eskimo living in the interior baskets aud mats of differ- 

 ent designs are woven from wild grass, which grows in greater or less 

 abundance on the banks of all the streams and among the low lands. 

 They are really fine specimens of this kind of work, and are woven so 

 closely as to become water-tight after being soaked for a short time. 



Large numbers of the ground squirrel are caught along the coast and 

 also back in the interior, and they make a very fair substitute for the 

 reindeer skin for clothing. 



These little animals are caught by placing snares over the holes open- 

 ing into their underground houses, and are made of strips of whalebone 

 in the form of a slip-noose. No bait is required, the squirrel, as he 

 comes out of the ground, running his head into the noose, and, in try- 

 ing to extricate himself, is quickly strangled to death. It takes forty 

 of these little animals to make a single artiger, and as most of the 

 inhabitants of some of the villages, often numbering over 100 persons, 

 are clothed nearly throughout with these skins, it is seen that they 

 must exist in large numbers. 



The oomiak, or skin boat, used by the Eskimo, is peculiar to these 

 people alone, and it is the only kind of boat used by them, with the 

 exception of the kyak, which will only jarry 1 or 2 persons. 



