1885.] 241 [Kneeland. 



April, 1885. The family consisted of a middle aged man and 

 wife, their marriageable daughter of fourteen, and an infant of 

 one year. 



They lived in their tent, and their dress and all their surround- 

 ings were from Lapland. The man was a little over five feet high, 

 the woman four and one-half, and the girl no larger than one of 

 our girls of eleven. They were dressed in the skin of the rein- 

 deer, hair-side out, and looked like small Norwegians or Danes ; 

 their hair was light chestnut ; the skin, where visible, was as fair 

 as our own ; the eyes were grayish blue ; the man had a sandy 

 moustache and a slight beard, and was about thirty-five years old ; 

 their features were not notably Mongolian, though the face was 

 rather flat, the cheeks a little prominent, and the nose, flat between 

 the eyes, slightly turned up. They were wholly unlike the de- 

 scriptions in the books, which must refer to the darker Russian 

 tribes. Though small in stature, they were stout and active. The 

 man wore a square cap of red flannel, and the females similar ones, 

 considerably ornamented. The child passed most of its time in a 

 fur-lined cradle, shaped like a large wooden shoe, suspended by 

 a peg from one of the poles over which their woollen tent was 

 stretched ; its movements were restricted by tight woollen clothing. 

 The conical tent was about nine feet in diameter, and the same in 

 height, with an opening at the top for the escape of smoke from 

 the fire on the hearth of stones in the centre. The beds were sim- 

 ply a wooden shelf about a foot from the ground, covered with 

 reindeer skin. Their food consisted chiefly of dried and smoked 

 meats and fish, and black rye bread, the last of which they do not 

 get at home. They are fond of coffee, tobacco, psalm singing and 

 catechizing. Though gentle and easily pleased, they are decidedly 

 melancholy and inexpressive. 



General Meeting, Oct. 21, 1885. 



The President, Mr. S. H. Scudder in the chair. 

 Dr. S. Kneeland showed models of two memorial gravestones 

 from Central Sweden with Runic inscriptions of the heathen period ; 

 both were cut in the body of a serpent or dragon. 



PROCEEDINGS B. 8. N. H. VOL. XXIII. 16 JUNE, 1886. 



