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Not perceiving any Esquimaux on shore, Jonathan and Thukkekina went up the bay in their kayaks in search of them. Meanwhile we landed, and on the declivity of a hill found a great quantity of green soapstone. In the evening Jonathan and Thukkekina returned with ten other Equimaux, who rejoiced to see us again. 25th. Brother Kohlmeister was engaged all day with the Esquimaux.
We took this in good part, and proceeded. We had passed the spring and rivulet of which I before spoke, and were now entering upon a narrow gorge leading through the chain of soapstone hills among which the village was situated. This gorge was very rocky and uneven, so much so that it was with no little difficulty we scrambled through it on our first visit to Klock-klock.
This is especially so at Bergen Hill and Staten Island. They occur in amorphous masses generally, and may be distinguished by being so soft as to be readily cut by the finger nail. I will detail further upon the soapstone forms in discussing the localities on Staten Island, and the chloritic form under the head of "Weehawken Tunnel."
The fact that the oilburning, soapstone lamps of the Eskimo were the only means of producing artificial light in aboriginal America, except by ordinary fires, is another tribute to the ingenuity of these northerners. So, too, is the fire-drill by which they alone devised a means of increasing the speed with which one stick could be twirled against another to produce fire.
As I write, a section of one of the old "Wheeler" cap-posts is crumbling to ashes in my fireplace. It was of solid oak, of a texture as firm and grainless almost as soapstone. No water had touched this wood, I know, for a hundred and fifty years, perhaps for almost a hundred added to that.
Upon making further search there proved to be quite an extensive vein of it; and since I knew that in civilized countries griddles are made out of soapstone, I concluded at once that other kinds of cooking utensils might be made as well.
Of course we had a much easier time of it than we had had the summer previous, for there was no hut to build, and we had now leisure to make ourselves more comfortable; and indeed we used our time so well that we accumulated, in good season, everything we needed in the way of food and fuel, catching the birds and other animals as before, which we stowed away in so many different places that we felt quite sure the bears would not be likely to discover all of them; and then we made fresh suits of fine fur clothes, and fresh fur bedding, and carved new lamps and pots and cups out of soapstone, that we might be safe against all accidents.
The click of the soapstone pencil upon the frameless slate, the scratch of the quill pen across the bespattered copybook, the shrill tone of the solitary reader as he stood with the rest of the class "toeing the mark" before the master, or the shriller tones of the arithmetic class reciting in concert the multiplication table, kept up a pleasant discord throughout the short day.
In these mounds were also found a large number of nicely carved soapstone pipes, usually with the stem made in connection with the bowl, though some were without this addition, consisting only of the bowl with a hole for inserting a cane or wooden stem.
It is highly essential that the laundry be properly and completely equipped for the work of washing, boiling, drying, and ironing. Stationary tubs are much to be desired, those porcelain-lined being more sanitary than either soapstone, which has a tendency to absorb grease, or wood, which absorbs the uncleanness from the soiled linen.
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