10 
MODES OF LIFE. 
more cleanly in this branch of domestic arrangements. 
They attend their lamps with assiduous care, using the 
long radicles of a spongy moss for wick, and preparing 
the blubber for its office by breaking up the cells be¬ 
tween their teeth. The condensed blubber, or more pro¬ 
perly fat, of the walrus, is said to give the best flame. 
“Our party, guided by the experience of the natives, 
use nearly the same form of wick, but of cotton. 
Pork-fat, boiled to lessen its salt, is our substitute for 
blubber; and, guided by a suggestion of Professor Olm- 
stead, I mix a portion of resin with the lard to in¬ 
crease its fluidity. Sundry devices in the way of metal 
reverberators conduct and diffuse the heat, and so suc¬ 
cessfully that a single wick will keep liquid ten ounces 
of lard with the air around at minus 30°. 
“ The heat given out by these burners is astonishing. 
One four-wicked lamp not very well attended gives us 
six gallons of water in twelve hours from snow and 
ice of a temperature of minus 40°, raising the heat of 
the cabin to a corresponding extent, the lamp being 
entirely open. With a line-wick, another Esquimaux 
plan, we could bake bread or do other cookery. But 
the crust of the salt and the deposit from the resin 
are constantly fouling the flame; and the consequence 
is that we have been more than half the time in an 
atmosphere of smoke. 
“Fearing the effect of this on the health of every 
one, crowded as we are, and inhaling so much in¬ 
soluble foreign matter without intermission, I have 
to-day reduced the number of lights to four; two of 
