120 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
the animal, have been firmly closed. In one of the forepaws 
there is then inserted with great skill a wooden air- and water¬ 
tight cock with spigot and faucet. In sacks intended for dry 
wares the paws are also cut off, and the opening through which 
the contents are put in and taken out is made right across the 
breast immediately below the forepaws. 
Fire is lighted partly in the way common in Sweden some 
decades ago by means of flint and steel, partly by means of a 
drill implement. In the former case the steel generally consists 
of a piece of a file or some other old steel tool, or of pieces of 
iron or steel which have been specially forged for the purpose. 
Commonly the form of this tool indicates a European or 
Eussian-Siberian origin, but I also acquired clumsily hammered 
pieces of iron, which appeared to form specimens of native skill 
in forging. A Chukch showed me a large fire-steel of the last 
mentioned kind, provided with a special handle of copper 
beautifully polished by long-continued use. He evidently 
regarded it as a very precious thing, and I could not persuade 
him to part with it. On the supposition that the metal of the 
clumsily hammered pieces of iron might possibly be of meteoric 
origin I purchased as many of them as I could. But the ex¬ 
amination, to which they were subjected after our return, 
showed that they contain no traces of nickel. The iron was 
thus not meteoric. 
The flint consists of a beautiful chalcedony or agate, which 
has been formed in cavities in the volcanic rocks which occur so 
abundantly in north-eastern Asia, and which probably are also 
found here and there as pebbles in the beds of the tundra 
rivers. As tinder, are used partly the woolly hair of various 
animals, partly dry fragments of different kinds of plants. The 
steel and a large number of pieces of flint are kept in a skin 
pouch suspended from the neck. Within this pouch there is a 
smaller one, containing the tinder. It is thus kept warm by 
the heat of the body, and protected from wet by its double 
