Editorial note — INDEX.
Reading edition
Missing . in figure captions has been silently supplied. Spelling in citations, including all French sources, is unchanged unless otherwise noted.
A few words have ä (a with umlaut) where â or ā (long a) was expected:
nä´nu (polar bear: both occurrences of the word) wooden partitions called sä´potĭn Nägawau´ra, now deceased deadfalls or steel traps (nänori´a) dancing caps (kă´brû, käluka´)
The spelling “slungshot” is used consistently.
The spellings “Inuit” and “Innuit” (including “an Innuit” in one quoted passage) both occur.
The word “Arctic” is generally capitalized, but exceptions were too frequent to regularize.
Names of ships such as Vega are rarely italicized, and scientific names never. All are shown as printed.
Forms were only changed when there was a clear pattern. This list is not meant to be comprehensive:
northeast, northwest; southeast, southwest never hyphenated
ridgepole; tiestring, bowstring, drawstring
woodenware, smoothbore, midleg, handboard
pipestem, sealthong, centerbit
whale-fish, whale-skin, whale-iron, whale-harpoon but whalebone, whaleman/whalemen
breechloader but muzzle-loader, -loading
foreshaft and fore-shaft, treenail and tree-nail
Words in -skin are generally hyphenated, but exceptions are not marked. The forms “needlecase” (one word, no hyphen) and “needle case” (two words) both occur.