Yet it is in climates where the torrid sun presents itself as the life-giving force that, alike in the old and the new world, the worship of fire, and the rites associated with its use, have been found most fully developed. It is noticeable, moreover, that fire is less used in the frigid than in the temperate zones as the direct source of heat. The Esquimaux in his snow-hut would find a fire productive only of discomfort. Even in the adaptation of animal food to his use cookery is less indispensable than in other latitudes; and fire is more prized by him in his brief summer as a protection against the myriads of noxious insects then warmed into life, than as a means of counteracting the rigour of a polar winter. He depends for warmth on his fur clothing, and still more on the heat-producing blubber and fat which constitute so large a portion of his food. Yet the lamp, generally made of stone, with its moss wick, and the stone kettle, play an important part among the implements and culinary apparatus of an Esquimaux’s hut. On those he depends for his supply of water from melted snow, for thawing and drying his clothes, and for cooking; and without the light of the lamp the indoor life of the long unbroken arctic night would be spent as in a living tomb. The Esquimaux generally possess a piece of iron pyrites and of quartz. These serve them for flint and steel, with which they ignite a tuft of dried moss frayed in the hand. But they are also familiar with the more laborious fire-making process by means of friction, which is in general use throughout America. At the opposite extremity of the Continent lies Tierra del Fuego, the natives of which are exposed to still greater privations, and have been pronounced by observant voyagers as among the most degraded of savage races. Yet the Fuegians exhibit considerable ingenuity in constructing their fishing tackle, slings, bows and stone-tipped arrows, stone knives, and javelins pointed with bone. A bone harpoon in use by them, barbed only on one side (Fig. 33), resembles examples already referred to found in the Dordogne and other caves of the era when the mammoth and its hunters existed together in Southern France. M. Lecoq de Boisbeaudrau suggests that the deflection of the harpoon so formed serves as an equivalent for the refraction of the fish in the water, and thus the fisherman secures an unerring aim. If so, it furnishes an ingenious application of the fruits of experience directed to rectify a difficulty common to the modern Fuegian and to the Troglodyte of post-glacial times.