60 THE POINT BARROW ESKIMO. 
Ocean. This wood is sufficiently abundant to furnish the natives with 
all they need for fuel and other purposes, and consists chiefly of pine, 
spruce, and cottonwood, mostly in the form of water-worn logs, often of 
large size. Of late years, also, much wood of the different kinds used 
in shipbuilding has drifted ashore from wrecks. 
MINERALS. 
The people of this region are acquainted with few mineral substances, 
excluding the metals which they obtain from the whites. The most 
important are flint, slate, soapstone, jade, and a peculiar form of massive 
pectolite, first described by Prof. F. W. Clarke! from specimens brought 
home by our party. Flint, 4nma, was formerly in great demand for 
arrow and spear heads and other implements, and according to Dr. 
Simpson? was obtained from the Nunatanmiun. It is generally black 
or a slightly translucent gray, but we collected a number of arrowheads, 
ete., made of jasper, red or variegated. A few crystals of transparent 
quartz, sometimes smoky, were also seen, and appeared to be used as 
amulets. Slate, ulu/ksev, ‘material for a round knife,” was used, as its 
name imports, for making the woman’s round knife, and for harpoon 
blades, ete. It is a smooth clay slate, varying in hardness, and light 
green, red, purple, dark gray, or black in color. ATI the pieces of soft 
gray soapstone, tuna/kte, which are so common at both villages, are 
probably fragments of the lamps and kettles obtained in former years 
from the eastern natives. The jade is often very beautiful, varying 
from a pale or bright translucent green to a dark olive, almost black, 
and was formerly used for making adzes, whetstones, and occasionally 
other implements. The pectolite, generally of a pale greenish or bluish 
color, was only found in the form of oblong, more or less cylindrical 
masses, used as hammerheads. Both of these minerals were called 
kau/dlo, and were said to come “from the east, a long way off,” from 
high rocky ground, but all that we could learn was very indefinite. 
Dr. Simpson was informed® that the stones for making whetstones were 
brought from the Kuwitk River, so that this jade is probably the same 
as that which is said to form Jade Mountain, in that region. 
Bits of porphyry, syenite, and similar rocks are used for making 
labrets, and large pebbles are used as hammers and net sinkers. They 
have also a little iron pyrites, both massive and in the form of spherical 
coneretions. The latter were said to come from the mouth of the Col- 
ville, and are believed by the natives to have fallen from the sky. Two 
other kinds of stone are brought from the neighborhood of Nu/ystknan, 
partly, it appears, as curiosities, and partly with some ill defined mysti- 
eal notions. The first are botryoidal masses of brown limonite, resemb- 
ling bog iron ore, and the other sort curious concretions, looking like the 
familiar “clay stones,” but very heavy, and apparently containing a 
1U.S. Geol. Sury., Bull. 9, p. 9, 1884. 2Op. cit., p. 266. 3Op. cit., p. 266. 
