FIRE MAKING APPARATUS. 



559 



In the prelimiuary report, Mr. Holm gives the time at almost less 

 than half a miunte. It was made by the Eskimo, Illinguaki, and his 

 wife, who, on being presented with a box of matches, gave up their 

 drill, saying that they had no farther use for it. 



In the same report Mr. Holm gives an interesting note. He says : 

 This fire apparatus is certaiuly better developed than that which has been de- 

 scribed and drawn by Nordenskiold from the Chukcliis (Voy. of the Vega, u, p. l'2fi). 

 The principle is the same as the Greenlander's drill, which they enii)loy for making 

 holes in wood and bone, and which is furnished with a bow and month-piece.* (iig. 

 26.) 



Fig. 26. 

 BoitiNG Skt. 



(Augmaesalilt Eskimo, E. Greenland. G. HhIiti's Etlinologirk of Anginagsnlikerne. ) 



The central holes of this hearth are worthy of note, occurring in the 

 farthest eastern locality of the Eskimo, and in Labrador. 



Western Greenland. — The material in the Museum from western 

 Greenland is very scanty. The southern coast has been settled for so 

 long a time that the Eskimo and many of their arts have almost be- 

 come extinct. No view of fire-making in Greenland would be complete 

 without Davis's quaint description of it, made three hundred years ago 

 but it was the upper end of the spindle that was wet in Trane. A 

 Greenlander "begaune to kindle a fire in this manner: He tooke a 

 piece of a boord wherein was a hole half thorow ; into that hole he puts 

 the end of a round sticke like unto a bedstatte, wetting the end thereof 

 in Trane, and in a fashion of a turner with a piece of lether, by his 

 violent motion doeth very speedily produce fire."t 



Eskimo graves and village sites yield evidence also that the fire- 

 making tools were not different from those at present used higher north 

 along the coast, and on the east coast. 



* Danish Umiak Expedition. Preliminary Report, p. 208. Tiiis seems scarcely 

 what would be inferred from the development of these inventions. 

 t Hakluyt Society, in, p. 104. 



