The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1898-05-17
THE REINDEER.

why the Government Sent Those
Wonderful Animals to Alaska.
From the Cincinnati Commercial-Tribune.
Nature has provided the horse as a
means of transportation in the temperate
zones, the camel for the desert, the ele-
plant for the jungle and the reindeer for
the Arctic regions The United States
government has just realized that 1t
owned a large slice of the frozen north
without any reindeer. so it has been trans
porting them from Siberia for several
years past, and has just had a large con-
signment sent over from Lapland.
The only means of transportation in
that great bleak Northwest has been
afforded by the Eskimo dogs. These are
wonderfully efficient, and have served both
bnatives and white men well. but for many
reasons, the reindeer are a great deal
better 80 3U d. .nis.sa
First of all, the deer, when turned loose
at night, find their own food, the lichens,
which grow in great abundance beneath
the snow, while food for the dogs must be
carried and, if the journey is long one,
amounts to several hundred pounds in
weight, for the dogs have most rapacious
appetites, which is not to be wondered at
considering the amount of work they do
in a day
The reindeer are not affected by any
degree of cold, while the dogs have been
known TO freeze to death. Then the deer
can 60 farther and faster than the dogs
and drag a heavier burden.
There are other reasons why these ami
mails make an especially desirable popula-
ton for an Arctic province, Reindeer milk
is rich and nourishing, and reindeer meat
is more so. 1t is often cured and may be
kept indefinitely or exported to more
southern states.
The fur which renders the animals them
selves so impervious to the cold is just as
effective when worn by human beings in
the shape of garments. 1t keeps the
warmth of the body from escaping better
than any other material in the world.
Dressed in two suits of this, men have
been known to sleep outdoors in comfort
when the thermometer registered 70 de-
grees below zero. The hair has a buoyant
quality which makes it valuable for life
saving apparatus, and a most excellent
glue is made from their hoofs.
Their legs are easily broken, and their
flesh in spite of their great powers of
endurance, is tender and easily torn, and
their backs will not bear the weight of
even q rev pounds IL IL - placed SuuueLIy
upon them, so that the best way to throw
a deer is for the herder to lean across it's
hack, gradually bearing down more and
more heavily until IL drops TO its knees
and finally TO the ground. The hoofs look
ungainly and entirely too large for the
rest of the body, but in travelling behind
enc the reason of this becomes apparent,
for il spreads out like that of the camel
and the OK, and prevents their sinking In
the snow to any depth.
The Eskimo herdefs who are being
trained at the government station, on
Bering sea, do not find the work difficult,
as the deer are always inclined to stay
together If a portion of the herd Is sep
arated during a storm they instinctively
find their way back to the others as soon
as the storm clears.
Reindeer driving is a very exhlarating
occupation, resembling, when the deer are
fresh, a toboggan slide on level ground.
Only one line is used by the driver, this 3
called a lougee. When several are trave.-
ing together they are apt to follow, in
single file the one which is ahead. They
can pull 800 pounds at the average rate,
of ten miles an hour for ten hours with
| out fatigue.