translucent yellow colour is beautiful, and when filled with the good-natured, ruddy-cheeked Eskimo, clad in soft and elegant furs, the picture formed is one that is remembered ever after. In the Eastern regions it is termed the woman’s boat. They are usually about thirty feet long, five or six wide, and thirty inches deep. The ends are both rather pointed, and the bottom is flat. Sometimes there will be fifteen or twenty persons in one of the umiaks at the same time. The frame is on the same general principle as all other boats—that is, a combination of certain ribs, thwarts, braces, etc. All these pieces are lashed together, and when the skin covering is on, the umiak is a staunch and excellent craft, albeit it is entirely open. The cover is laced on, and in winter it is removed and stored away till the waters are open once more, when it is soaked in the sea to render it soft and again stretched in place. [Illustration: UMIAK OF THE CENTRAL ESKIMO The Alaska umiak has no oars and is more pointed ] [Illustration: ESKIMO KAYAKS The framework is tied together and covered with walrus or other hide. Sometimes, as in the Aleut kayaks, there are two or three hatch-holes ] The umiak[251] has a sail of the square sort, made in these days out of cotton, though formerly of seal intestine, which is attached to a yard. The mast is some twelve feet high. The paddles are about five feet long and six inches wide, though there are smaller ones also. Sometimes oars are used as well as the paddles in navigating the umiak. The kayak is made in the same way by stretching skins over a wood frame tied together most dexterously. The navigator sits in a hatchway, as the kayak is entirely covered, and a sort of apron tied around his waist and around the coaming renders the boat water-tight. It is said some of the Alaskans will turn a somersault in the water, coming up on the opposite side. [Illustration: METHOD OF ATTACHING OARS TO UMIAK] [Illustration: METHOD OF TYING FRAME OF KAYAK] Besides the boats mentioned there were others on the continent made in different ways,[252] but these are the chief ones and serve to show that the Amerind was ready to adapt himself to water when occasion demanded. Taken all in all, his weapons, armour, implements, and his transportation methods show, as other things do, that he was a progressing, thinking being, with a good brain directing his operations. [Illustration: THIN PLATE OF COPPER WROUGHT BY REPOUSSÉ METHOD, ILLINOIS MOUND] CHAPTER X MINING, METALLURGY, AND SCIENCE