Page:Across the sub-Arctics of Canada (1897).djvu/152

 of topick is that of a cone, very similar to an Indian tepee, but it is sometimes rectangular and built with vertical walls about four feet high.

The furniture of these summer dwellings is simple, consisting usually of a few skins lying about the rocky floor, to serve as seats in the daytime and bedding at night; two or three seal-skin sacks of oil, two shallow stone vessels used as lamps, a few hunting implements, some little deer-skin bags, used as ladies' work-baskets; several coils of seal-skin line, a few pairs of moccasins scattered about, and at one side of the door the somewhat repulsive remains of a carcass consumed at the last meal. Such is the Eskimo summer house.

SECTION THROUGH IGLOE

His winter dwelling in the snow is more interesting and curious. It is called an "igloe," and is built in the form of a dome with large blocks of snow. The common size of the dwelling apartment of an igloe is twelve feet in diameter, and eight feet in height. This is approached by a succession of three or four smaller domes, connected by low archways, through which one has to crouch in order to pass.

The innermost archway opening into the dwelling apartment is about three feet high, and as one enters he steps down a foot or more to the level of the floor of