434 



of wood from that of the stool, the part with which the larger 

 fracture has been repaired undoubtedly belongs to the stool ^); 

 for the ribs in it fit in exactly with those on the other side 

 of the crack. 



A stool of the same type, but less beautifully worked, was 

 found a little further up the fjord by the Nathorst Expedition^). 

 Considerably higher to the north (at 74° 20' lat. N.) two legs 

 (about 12 cm in length) of a sealing- stool which are now in the 

 Ethnographical Museum at Christiania (inventoriai Nos. 10293 

 and 10399) were found by whalers. 



Not far from Greenland, in Depot point in Heibergs Land 

 (79° 8' lat. N., 86° 10' long. W.), the Fram Expedition (Sverdrup) 

 found a sealing-stool of a similar type, but without the above- 

 described relief ridge on the lower side, with three conical 

 holes for the legs, and two smaller holes besides, near the 

 edge on each side of the 'handle'. Between the three holes 

 the under side of the stool has been scooped out. The side 

 edges are bevelled. The greatest length of the stool from 

 corner to corner is 40 cm. This stool also is in the Ethno- 

 graphical Museum at Christiania. 



At Ammassalik towards the southern part of the East coast 

 of Greenland sealing-stools of an almost similar type, but with 

 longer legs are extensively used. They more closely resemble 

 the type used in the northernmost part of Alaska, which is thus 

 described by Murdoch^): — "The upper surface is flat and 

 smooth, the lower broadly beveled off on the edges and deeply 

 excavated in the middle, so that there are three straight ridges 

 joining the three legs, each of which stands in the middle of 

 a slight prominence. The three legs are set into holes at each 



^) This piece has, to be sure, a different colour than the rest of the stool, 

 but this can be explaihed by the fact, that after it had been broken 

 off for the second time it lay better shielded from climatic agencies 

 than the rest of the stool, till the Expedition found it. 



2) Nathorst 347. 



«) Murdoch 1, 255—256. 



