DWELLINGS. 395 



not unlike a standing pye."* We here obtain an idea of 

 the manner in which the knowledge of pottery may have 

 been developed. After using clay to raise the sides of their 

 stone vessels, it would naturally occur to them that the same 

 substance would serve for the bottom also, and thus the use 

 of stone might be replaced by a more convenient material. 



The snow houses melt away every spring ; but in some places 

 the Esquimaux construct their dwellings on a similar plan, 

 but with the bones of whales and walruses on a foundation of 

 stones, and with a covering of earth. The snow-houses are 

 of course pretty clean at first, but they generally become 

 very filthy. The bone-huts are even dirtier, because more 

 durable. " In every direction round the huts," says Captain 

 Parry, " were lying innumerable bones of walruses and seals, 

 together with skulls of dogs, bears, and foxes, on many of 

 which a part of the putrid flesh still remaining sent forth 

 the most offensive effluvia."f He even observed a number 

 of human bones lying about among the rest. J The inside of 

 the huts, "from their extreme closeness and accumulated 

 filth, emitted an almost insupportable stench, to which an 

 abundant supply of raw and half-putrid walrus flesh in no 

 small degree contributed. " 



On the north-western coasts of America the natives find 

 plenty of drift-wood, and the floors of their yourts are, accord- 

 ing to Belcher, made of split timber, nicely smoothed and care- 

 fully caulked with moss. Underneath is often a large store- 

 room, for in summer they kill many reindeer, whales, walrus, 

 seals, swans, ducks, etc., the greater part of which are laid by 

 for winter use. One of these winter stores is thus expressively, 

 though somewhat hastily, described by Sir E. Belcher : || "It was 

 frozen into a solid mass beneath, but loose from those on the 



* Cook's Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, vol. ii., p. 510. 



f Parry, I.e. p. 280. J See also Lyon's Journal, p. 236. 



Parry, I.e. p. 358. || Trans. Ethn. Soc., New Ser., vol. i., p. 132. 



