XII.] 
LAMPS AND FUEL. 
119 
of the whale, soap-stone or burned clay, , broader behind than 
before, and divided by an isolated toothed comb into two 
divisions. In the front division wicks of moss (Sphagnum sp.) 
are laid in a long thin row along the whole edge. Under the 
lamp there is always another vessel intended to receive the 
train-oil which may possibly be spilled. 
In summer the natives also cook with wood in the open air 
or in the outer tent, in winter only in the greatest necessity in 
the latter. For they find the smoke, which the wood gives off 
in the close tent, unendurable. Although driftwood is to be 
found in great abundance on the beach, scarcity of train-oil 
was evidently considered by the natives as great a misfortune 
as scarcity of food. Uinga eek, no fuel (properly, no fire), was 
the constant cry even of those who drew loads of driftwood 
on board to earn bread for themselves. The circumstance that 
their fuel does not give off any smoke has the advantage that 
the eyes of the Chukches are not usually nearly so much 
attacked as those of the Lapps. 
In the tent the women have always a watchful eye over the 
trimming of the lamp and the keeping up of the fire. The 
wooden pins she uses to trim the wick, and which naturally are 
drenched with train-oil, are used when required as a light 
or torch in the outer tent, to light pipes, &c. In the same way 
other pins dipped in train-oil are used.^ Clay lamps are made 
by the Chukches themselves, the clay being well kneaded and 
moistened with urine. The burning is incomplete, and is indeed 
often wholly omitted. 
Train-oil and other liquid wares are often kept in sacks of 
seal-skin, consisting of whole hides, out of which the body has 
been taken through the opening made by cutting off the head, 
and in which all holes, either natural or caused by the killing of 
^ I have seen such pins, also oblong stones, sooty at one end, which, 
after having been dipped in train-oil, have been used as torches, laid by the 
side of corpses in old Eskimo graves in north-western Greenland. 
