The Countries of North America

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Excerpt from The Countries of North America: A Geographical Reader I. An Eskimo Hut. The interior of the hut was about ten feet in diameter, and five and a half feet high. The walls were made of stones, moss, and the bones of the whale and other animals. The floor was covered with thin, flat stones. Half of this floor, at the back part of the hut, was raised a foot. This elevation they called the "breek, " and it was used both as bed and seat, as it was covered with dry grass, over which were spread bearskins and dogskins. The hole of the entrance in the floor was close to the front wall, and was covered with a piece of sealskin. The walls were lined with sealskins or foxskins, stretched to dry. In this hut, at the edge of the "breek, " sat an old woman, and on the other side, a young one, each busily attending to a smoky, greasy lamp. A third woman in the corner was also busy with a lamp. The lamps were made of soapstone, and in shape looked much like clam-shells, being about eight inches in diameter. The cavity was filled with oil, and on the straight edge a flame was burning quite brilliantly. The wick which supplied fuel to the flame was of moss. The chief business of the women was to keep the lamps supplied with blubber, from which the heat of the flame drew the oil. The three lamps furnished all the heat, and made it quite hot. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.