380 IGLOE OF ANOATOK. 
ing a scanty supply of sparks on a tinder composed of 
the silky down of the willow-catkins, (S. lanata,) which 
he held on a lump of dried moss. 
“The hut or igloe at Anoatok was a single rude 
elliptical apartment, built not unskilfully of stone, the 
outside lined with sods. At its farther end a rude 
platform, also of stone, was lifted about a foot above 
the entering floor. The roof fonned something of a 
curve: it was composed of flat stones, remarkably large 
and heavy, arranged so as to overlap each other, but 
apparently without any intelligent application of the 
principle of the arch. The height of this cave-like 
abode barely permitted one to sit upright. Its length 
was eight feet, its breadth seven feet, and an expansion 
of the tunnelled entrance made an appendage of per¬ 
haps two feet more. 
“The true winter entrance is called the tossut. It 
is a walled tunnel, ten feet long, and so narrow that a 
man can hardly crawl along it. It opens outside below 
the level of the igloe, into which it leads by a gradual 
ascent. 
“ Time had done its work on the igloe of Anoatok, 
as among the palatial structures of more southern de¬ 
serts. The entire front of the dome had fallen in, 
closing up the tossut, and forcing us to enter at the soli¬ 
tary window above it. The breach was large enough 
to admit a sledge-team; but our Arctic comrades showed 
no anxiety to close it up. Their clothes saturated with 
the freezing water of the floes, these iron men gathered 
themselves round the blubber-fire and steamed away 
