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. In view of these clever
inventions it seems safe to say that the Eskimo has remained a
nomadic savage not because he lacks inventive skill but partly
because the climate deadens his energies and still more because
it forbids him to practice agriculture.

Southward and inland from the coastal homes of the Eskimo lies
the great region of the northern pine forests. It extends from
the interior of Alaska southeastward in such a way as to include
most of the Canadian Rockies, the northern plains from Great Bear
Lake almost to Lake Winnipeg, and most of the great Laurentian
shield around Hudson Bay and in the peninsula of Labrador. Except
among the inhabitants of the narrow Pacific slope and those of
the shores of Labrador and the St. Lawrence Valley, a single type
of barbarism prevailed among the Indians of all the vast pine
forest area. Only in a small section of the wheat-raising plains
of Alberta and Saskatchewan have their habits greatly changed
because of the arrival of the white man. Now as always the
Indians in these northern regions are held back by the long,
benumbing winters. They cannot practice agriculture, for no crops
will grow. They cannot depend to any great extent upon natural
vegetation, for aside from blueberries, a few lichens, and one or
two other equally insignificant products, the forests furnish no
food except animals. These lowly people seem to have been so
occupied with the severe struggle with the elements that they