REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 73 



North American continent. One of tlie most important products of the 

 birch-bark industry is the canoe; and this, hke otlier industrial products 

 of consequence, exerted a powerful influence on the lives of the producers. 

 Through one of those harmonies of nature on which the progress of man- 

 kind so largely depends, much of the birch-1)earing region of North 

 America (a zone stretching from Maine to Washington State and Alaska, 

 and extending from below the Great Lakes nearly to the treeless Arctic) 

 is also the region of late Pleistocene glaciation, and hence of glacial lakes, 

 swamps, and labyrinthine streams; so that throughout the period of abo- 

 riginal development an ideal canoe material coexisted with illimitable 

 functions for the canoe in the way of travel and transportation. Under 

 the natural combination, joine<l to native intelligence and skill, the lakes 

 and streams l)ecame routes of passage, and by reason of the lightness and 

 strength of the material, and the lowness and narrowness of the ice-molded 

 divides, portages were easy, so that the routes passed from lake to lake, 

 river to river, and drainage system to drainage system, practically across 

 the continent. Under the stimulus of facility the birch-canoe makei s 

 became travelers and explorers; energetic hunters and fishermen explored 

 new waters and carried tribal knowledge into new regions; ambitious 

 scions struck out int!o the remoter wilderness to make conquest over the 

 unknown and often to establish families and clans, and eventually tribes, 

 in new localities; so that in course of time the paddlers of the light canoe 

 carried their kindred, their dialects, their faiths over the greater part of 

 the vast region defined by the birch tree and the glacial waterways. Most 

 of the canoe men belong to the Algonquian stock, most of the remainder 

 to the Athapascan stock; and the recent researches render it clear that 

 their water craft was a leading factor in determining their wide distribu- 

 tion, their success in making conquest of the continent up to the plane of 

 aboriginal standards. The detail results of the work are in preparation 

 for an early report. 



In tracing tlie joint lines of migration and esthetic development noted in 

 other paragraphs Dr. Fewkes became impressed with the fact that among 

 the ancestors of the Hopi Indians the esthetic standards were nnich more 

 permanent than the industrial standards. Throughout the entire course 

 retraced by his researches — a course covering several distinct treks, alter- 

 nating with periods of stable settlement, the whole covering some centu- 

 ries — the symbolic devices inscribed on the fictile ware remained constant 

 or underwent only slight and easily traceable modifications, while at each 

 successive settlement new materials were utilized in the pottery making, tiie 

 manufacturing processes and the final forms of the ware being manifestly 

 adjusted to the character of the material. The discovery that the indus- 

 trial activities (which directly measure the conjustment of man and 

 environment) are the most progressive of the entire series is not, of course, 

 novel; still less is it novel to learn that the especially conservative esthetic 

 concepts, which are at once hereditary and prophetic, as shown by Ciroos, 

 outlive whole generations of contemporaneous industrial concepts; yet the 

 example is notably apposite and instructive, largely by reason of the free- 

 dom of the folk from external interference, with the consequent simplicity 

 and integrity of the record. The details are incorporated in Dr. Fewkes's 

 report on operations of 1896-97. 



