WIRE of Lapland

WIRE of Lapland. The inhabitants of Lapland have a sort of shining slender substance in use among them on several occasions, which is much of the thickness and appearance of our silver-wire, and is therefore called, Lapland-wire. It is made of the sinews of the rein-deer, which being carefully separated in the eating, are, by the women, after soaking in water, and beating, spun into a sort of thread, of admirable fineness, and strength, when wrought to the smallest filaments; but when larger, is very strong, and fit for the purposes of strength and force. Their wire, as it is called, is made of the finest of these threads, covered with tin. The women do this business, and the way they take is to melt a piece of tin, and pla-

cing at the edge of it a horn with a hole through it, they draw these sinewy threads, covered with the tin, through the hole, which prevents their coming out too thick covered. This drawing is performed with their teeth; and there is a small piece of bone placed at the top of the hole, where the wire is made flat, so that we always find it rounded on all sides but one, where it is flat.

This wire they use in embroidering their cloaths as we do gold and silver; they often sell it to strangers, under the notion of its having certain magical virtues.