Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 27.djvu/443

Rh How Yakuts make a Fire.—The process of starting a fire employed by the Yakuts and Tunguses of Northern Siberia is quite elaborate, and is thus described by Commander Mellville in his "The Lena Delta": "To start the fire, a dry piece of wood is procured from the high river-banks, many sticks being cut with the axe and rejected until one entirely free from moisture and fit for kindling is found, which is then carefully split and kept dry. The best of the drift-wood is next selected and also split up and chopped into proper lengths. Thus far, so good: but the natives are ignorant of matches, and with only their flint and steel it would seem a difficult matter to start a fire, since they have no rags, either cotton or flax, or any highly inflammable material like sulphur-sticks. But here is where the Yakut and Tunguse ingenuity asserts itself. The buds of the Arctic willow are forever trying to peep from beneath their thin blanket of snow, and within these buds is a light flossy substance in the nature of thistle-down. Whenever he can, the native gathers a handful of these, and robs them of their down, which he then moistens slightly and mixes with ground charcoal, prepared by cooling a lighted piece of birch-wood in the ashes of his hearth. The dampened floss heavily rolled through the charcoal is next covered up and dried before the fire on the same board whereon it was pounded and the charcoal powdered. It is now an excellent tinder, igniting quickly into a hot and durable point of fire. But, in addition to it, some light match-stuff is necessary, and, to supply this need, a bundle of fine soft sticks, about thirty inches long, is always kept drying over the fireplace. Before the native sets out on a journey, or, indeed, as often as material is required, the old women of the house take down several of these sticks and carefully shape them into sword-blades. They then rest their knives in beveled notches cut in the flat sides of small pieces of wood, about three eighths of an inch broad, one eighth of an inch thick, and one inch and a half long, and the operation proper begins. Along the wooden sword, which is held against the shoulder like a violin, the knife in its gauge is drawn continuously and rapidly, and at each draught a thin coiling shaving drops to the floor or into the lap of the operator. A bag full of these fine curls—which, when matted together, very much resemble the American manufactured material known to upholsterers as 'excelsior'—is always ready for the traveling native, preserved dry in the huts beneath the sleeping skins, and carried in a fish-skin bag on the journey. So, now, with the materials at hand, we will start a fire. The native takes from his skin pouch a bunch of the 'excelsior' about the size of a robin's nest, rolls it into a ball, punches a hole in it, and then lays it carefully in the snow. Next, taking a pinch of tinder from the bag which always hangs at his hip, he places it on his flint, and with a quick sharp stroke ignites and incloses it in the center of his nest of shavings, which he then lifts up, holding it lightly with his fingers spread apart for the passage of air, and whirls rapidly around his head at arm's length. At first, a faint, pleasing odor of burning birch steals upon the air, then a light streak of smoke follows the revolving arm, and then the heat within his hand notifies the native that a proper degree of ignition has been attained; he suddenly ceases his gyrations, tears open the smoking nest, and with a quick puff blows it into flame. Then depositing the blazing ball on the snow, he soon piles his fagots over and around it, and in few seconds his fire is in full blast."

Religion and Inebriety.—Dr. T. D. Crothers, considering the question whether faith and prayer, or honest intention on the part of the patient, can alone save him from inebriety, expresses his opinion as in the negative, and says: "In a study of ten cases on this point, I found that seven had been, before and after the beginning of inebriety, active church-members, had experienced conversion and led active lives of faith and prayer for longer or shorter intervals, depending on circumstances. Two of these were periodical inebriates, and had, during the free intervals between the attacks, led a most consistent Christian life of faith and prayer. One of the seven exhibited the strange delusion of religious mania when drinking; at all other times he was a quiet skeptic and doubter, but, when once under the influence of alcohol, he was the most ardent religious devotee, exhorting with