The bows are among the most striking specimens from this people. They are pared down with great waste from the tusks of the walrus, taking the graceful curve of the tusk. The Museum possesses one 24½ inches long. It is on their decoration that the Eskimo lavishes his utmost art. The bow does not lend itself well to sculpture, as does the mouth-piece; so he covers the smooth ivory with the most graphic and truthful engravings of scenes in the active hunting life in the Arctic, or he tallies on it the pictures of the reindeer, whales, seals, and other animals that he has killed. Professor Baird was interested more with these bows than with any other Eskimo products, and desired to have them figured and studied. The distribution of the bow is remarkable. It is not found south of Norton Sound, but extends north and east as far as the Eskimo range. The Chukchis use it,[30] but the Ostyaks use the ancient breast drill.[31] The bow is used by individuals in boring holes. It is presumed that its use as a fire-making tool is secondary, the cord and handles being the older. The difficulty of making fire is greatly increased when one man attempts to make it with the compound drill; at the critical moment the dust will fail to ignite; besides, there is no need of one man making fire; a thing that is for the common good will be shared by all. Hence the cord with handles, which usually requires that two men should work at the drill, is as a rule used by the Eskimo. Though the Sioux, and some other North American tribes, made use of the bow to increase the speed of the drill, they did not use the thong with handles, nor was the bow common even in tribes of the Siouan stock that had attained to its use (see remarks p. 549). The bow may be termed a more advanced invention, allowing one man with ease to bore holes. The hearth is made of any suitable wood. It is commonly stepped and has slots. The central hole with groove is also found. These hearths are preserved carefully, and fire has been made on some of them many times. The distribution of the central-hole hearth (see fig. 21, pl. LXXIV), and the slot-and-step hearth (see fig. 36), is rather striking. The central holes are found in the specimens observed from the north coast of Alaska, Insular British America, and Greenland, exclusively. The stepped hearth with edge holes and slots is by far the more common in western Alaska, though the other method crops out occasionally; both ways are sometimes used in the same tribe. More often, the central holes are bored on a groove (fig. 34), which collects the ground-off particles and facilitates ignition. Rarely fire is made by working the drill on a plane surface, in single, non-connecting holes. Plate LXXIV. [Illustration: Figs. 21, 22. Fire-making Set and Extra Hearth. Cat. No. 10258, U. S. N. M. Frobisher Bay. Collected by Capt. C. F. Hall.] [Illustration: Fig. 22.]