readily frayed out into fine fibres, in which condition it is used for fine needle-work; but when coarser thread or stout cord is required, these individual fibres are plaited together, with wonderful neatness and rapidity. One woman can make fifty or sixty yards of this cord or thread in a day.
With the Eskimos all joints, of whatever kind, are secured by these thongs, they having no nails or screws to supply their place. In making a komitick, the cross slats are all secured to the runners by seal thongs. In framing a kyack the numerous pieces are lashed together usually with seal or deer-skin, though sometimes, and preferably, with whalebone.
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ESKIMO KYACK.
The Eskimo kyack or canoe consists of a light frame neatly made from all sorts of scrap-wood, and strongly jointed together in the way just described. The frame having been completed, it is then covered with green skins, either of seal or deer, dressed, with the hair removed. The skins are joined to each other as they are put on by double water-tight seams, and are drawn tightly over the frame, so that when they dry they become very hard and as tight as a drum-head.
A full-sized kyack thus made is about twenty-two feet long, a foot and a half wide, and a foot deep. It is completely covered over on the top, excepting the small hole where the paddler sits, so that though an extremely
