413 
land side of Smith souiul, and on the Diomede isi^lands in Bering 
strait, there were natives who still dwelt in stone huts, roofed with 
whalebones or driftwood and chinked with earth, similar to those 
erected many centuries ago from the Arctic archipelago to Labrador. 
\Miatever the nature of their winter dwellings, all Eskimo 
illuminated them in the same way, with a stone (from Bering strait 
southward a ])ottery) lamp burning oil from the blubber of the 
sea mammals, or, in the case of the Eskimo inland from Hudson 
bay, the fat of the caribou. The coastal natives used this lamp 
to cook their food, and fasliionefl their cooking-pots from the same 
37016 
A village of .snow-huts. fPlwIo hi/ D. 
material, soapstone, or, in Alaska, pottery. Only during the summer 
months, from May to September, did they dispense with the lamp 
and cook outdoors with driftwood, or with the miserable fuels 
supi)lied by their treeless habitat — heather, dwarf willow, and the 
creeping dryas. There were tw^o methods of making fire, by striking 
together two lumps of pyrites, and by friction with a thong drill. 
Both methods had a wide distribution in America, but the blubber 
lamp w^as the Eskimos’ own creation; without it they coulrl hardly 
ha^^e sustained the severity of their environment. 
Their dress also was original, for the climate demanded fuller 
clothing than in other jmrts of America. The coat (or shirt, for it 
