189G.] obt [Cushing. 



tinuously bob up and clown on the ripples, however slight these were, in 

 such manner as to frighten the fish that liacl been driven, or had passed 

 over them at high tide, when, as the tide lowered, they naturally tried 

 to follow it. In connection with these nets we found riven stays, usu- 

 ally of cypress or pine, such as might have been used in holding them 

 upright. Hence I inferred that they had been stretched across the chan- 

 nels not only of the actual water courts of residence, like this, but, prob- 

 ably also, of the surrounding fish-pounds ; and if so, that the supply of 

 fresh fish must always have been abundant with the ancient inhabitants, 

 both near at hand in these enclosures, as well as even among the quays 

 •of the actual residence courts. 



We found four or five fish-hooks. The shanks or stems of these were 

 about three inches long, shaped much like those of our own, but made 

 from the conveniently curved main branches of the forked twigs of some 

 tough springy kind of wood. These were cut oft' at the forks in such 

 manner as to leave a portion of the stems to serve as butts, which were 

 girdled and notched in, so that the sharp, barbed points of deer bone, 

 which were about half as long as the shanks and leaned in toward 

 them, could be firmly attached with sinew and black rubber-gum ce- 

 ment. Tlie stems were neatly tapered toward the upper ends, which 

 terminated in slight knobs, and to these, lines — so fine that only traces 

 of them could be recovered — were tied by half-hitches, like the turns of 

 a bow string. Little plug-shaped fioats of gunibo-limbo wood, and 

 sinkers made from the short thick columella; of turbinella shells — not 

 shaped and polished like the highly finished plummet-shaped pendants 

 we secured in great numbei's, but with the whorls merely battered off — 

 seemed to have been used with these hooks and lines. That they were 

 designed for deep-sea fishing was indicated by the occurrence of flat 

 reels or spools shaped precisely like fine-toothed combs divested of their 

 inner teeth. There were also shuttles or skein-holders of hard wood, 

 six or seven inches long, with wide semicircular crotches at the ends. 

 But these may have served in connection with a double kind of barb, 

 made from two notched or hooked crochet-like points or prongs of deer 

 bone, that we found attached with fibre cords to a concave round-ended 

 plate, an inch wide and three inches long, made from the pearly nacre 

 of a pinna shell. Since several of these shining, ovoid plates were pro- 

 cured, I regarded them as possibly "baiting-spoons," and this one with 

 the barbed contrivance, as some kind of trolling gear, though it may, as 

 the sailors thought, have been a "pair of grains," or maj^ like the 

 hook proper, have been used for deep-sea fishing. Aside from these 

 few articles, no other fishing tackle for use in the open waters was 

 found ; barbed harpoons being conspicuously absent. This led to the 

 supposition that the ancient inhabitants had depended chiefly upon the 

 pounds and water courts, whence wath their nets they could at any time 

 have readily drawn greater numbers of the fish for their supply. 



Tools and Implements. — The working parts of the various instruments 



