This is an usual Eskimo precaution to prevent small objects from being lost in the snow. The drill is short, being only 7 inches long. The bow is the fibula of a deer, pierced at each end for the frayed thong of sealskin. It has a primitive look, but it admirably serves its purpose. The Point Barrow set was collected by the most successful expedition under charge of Lieut. P. H. Ray, U. S. Army. The knuckle-bone of a deer serves as a mouth-piece, the cup cavity and its general shape fitting it for the purpose admirably. [Illustration: Fig. 30. Fire-making Set. (Cat. No. 1327 U. S. N. M. Eskimo of Anderson River, B. C. Collected by C. P. Gaudet.)] The drill is regularly made of light pine wood; it is slightly smaller in the middle. The hearth is a rudely rounded piece of pine. A fragment has been split off, and on this surface a groove has been cut and three fire-holes bored along it. The thong is without handles; it is used to tie the parts together when they are not in use. A bunch of willow twigs, the down of which is used as tinder, is also shown (fig. 31). This set is especially interesting, because it shows the degeneration of an art. The fire-drill is so rarely used at Point Barrow, Mr. John Murdoch says, that it was not possible to get a full set devoted to that purpose. Those here shown are a make-shift. The method only survives by the conservatism of a few old men of the tribe, who still cling to old usages. One of these made the drill for Lieutenant Ray, telling him that it was the kind used in old times. It seems primitive enough; the knuckle-bone might well have been the first mouth-piece. The Eskimo farther east sometimes use a fish vertebra for the same purpose; one from the Anderson River has this. The cord without handles is undoubtedly the earliest form also. The small wooden and bone mouth-pieces of the Eskimo east of Point Barrow to Cumberland Gulf seem to be copies of the deer knuckle-bone. Another primitive adaptation is found in an Anderson River bow, which is made of the fibula of a deer (see fig. 30). The fire-making drill collected from the Chukchis by the _Vega_ expedition in the Cape Wankerem region, in northeastern Siberia, about the same latitude as Point Barrow, is figured in Nordenskiöld’s Report.[38] It is worked by a bow, and the drill turns in a mouth-piece of a deer astragalus like the Point Barrow specimen. The block has central holes, with short grooves running into each one. [Illustration: Fig. 31. Fire-making Set (with mouth-piece of deer’s knuckle-bone, thong, and tinder of willow catkins). (Cat. No. 89822. U. S. N. M. Eskimo of Point Barrow, Alaska. Collected by Lieut. P. H. Ray, U. S. A.)] Nordenskiöld’s description of the manner of making fire is very detailed. He records that the “women appear to be more accustomed than the men to the use of this implement.”