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 examination,
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 envelope. Along with it the men often carry
on their persons a sort of match of white, well-dried, and crushed
willows, which are plaited together and placed in even rolls. This
match burns slowly, evenly, and well.

The other sort of fire-implement consists of a dry wooden pin, which
by a common bow-drill is made to rub against a block of dry
half-blackened wood. The upper part of this pin runs in a drill
block of wood or bone. In one of the tools which I purchased, the
astragalus of a reindeer was used for this purpose. In the
light-stock holes have been made to give support to the pin, and
perhaps to facilitate the formation of the half-carbonised wood-meal
which the drilling loosens from the light-stock and in which the red
heat arises. When fire is to be lighted by means of this implement,
the lower part of the drill pin is daubed over with a little
train-oil, one foot holds the light-stock firm against the ground,
the bowstring is put round the drill pin, the left hand presses the
pin with the drill block against the light-stock, and the bow is
carried backwards and forwards, not very rapidly, but evenly,
steadily, and uninterruptedly, until fire appears. A couple of
minutes are generally required to complete the process The women
appear to be more accustomed than the men to the use of this
implement. An improved form of it consisted of a wooden pin