eet from this situation, it fell to
31 deg.; and, placed close to the wall, stood at 23 deg., the temperature
of the open air at the time being 25 deg. below _zero_. A greater degree
of warmth than this produces extreme inconvenience by the dropping from
the roofs. This they endeavour to obviate by applying a little piece of
snow to the place from which a drop proceeds, and this adhering, is for a
short time an effectual remedy; but for several weeks in the spring, when
the weather is too warm for these edifices, and still too cold for tents,
they suffer much on this account.

The most important, perhaps, of the domestic utensils, next to the lamp
already described, are the _=o=otk~o~os~e~eks_, or stone
pots for cooking. These are hollowed out of solid _lapis ollaris_, of an
oblong form, wider at the top than at the bottom all made in similar
proportion; though of various sizes corresponding with the dimensions
of the lamp which burns under it. The pot is suspended by a line of
sinew at each end to the framework over the fire, and thus becomes so
black on every side that the original colour of the stone is in no part
discernible. Many of them were cracked quite across in several places,
and mended by sewing with sinew or rivets of copper, iron, or lead, so
as, with the assistance of a lashing and a due proportion of dirt, to
render them quite watertight.

Besides the ootkooseeks, they have circular and oval vessels of
whalebone, of various sizes, which, as well as their ivory knives made
out of a walrus's tusk, are precisely similar to those described on the
western coast of Baffin's Bay in 1820. They have also a number of
smaller vessels of skin sewed neatly together; and a large basket of the
same material, resembling a common sieve in shape, but with the bottom
close and tight, is to be seen in every apartment. Under every lamp
stands a sort of "save-all," consisting of a small skin basket for
catching the oil that falls over. Almost every family was in possession
of a wooden tray very much resembling those used to carry butcher's meat
in England, and of nearly the same dimensions, which we understood them
to have procured by way of Noowook. They had a number of the bowls or
cups already once or twice alluded to as being made out of the thick
root of the horn of the musk-ox. Of the smaller part of the same horn
they also form a convenient drinking-cup, sometimes turning it up
artificially about one third from the po