EXHIBIT AT PAINT- AMEBICAN EXPOSITION. 213 



purpose of retrieving the game. There arc two varieties, the barbed 

 and the toggle harpoon. The barbed harpoon is simply the head of a 

 barbed spear, having a short line attaching it to the front end of the 

 shaft. It is impelled from the hand, from a how, or from a throwing 

 stick. The toggle harpoon has its head binged on the (Mid of a 

 thong, and when it is driven into an animal turns and forms a T-shaped 

 attachment, as on the end of a trace chain. The simplest form of the 

 harpoon is found at the Straits of Magellan, and for this reason the 

 series begins with the most southern example and proceeds northward 

 to the Arctic region, where the Eskimo, assisted by the fishermen and 

 the whalers of the world, have perfected the toggle variety. The 

 harpoon is used almost entirely in hunting animals by water, although 

 there are harpoon arrows, used for birds. This will he plain when it 

 is remembered that all harpoons are made for the purpose of seeming 

 the game after it is struck. When an animal is lanced on the land the 

 hunter has an opportunity of following up his effort, hut in the water 

 the whale, walrus, seal, fish, otter, or turtle usually disappears, and 

 the float, shaft, bladder, or some such light attachment enables the 

 hunter not only to secure his game, hut to recover the precious head 

 of his weapon. 



The fifth exhibit (Plate 51) consists of boat models and shows the 

 remarkable connection between environment, materials, and inven- 

 tions in navigation. Beginning with the Arctic shores, the Eskimo 

 rides in a skin-covered kaiak and carries freight in a skin-covered 

 scow, or women's boat. All over Canada and northern United States 

 the riding boat and freight boat are made of a light framework cov- 

 ered with birch bark. It was possible in one of these, by paddling 

 and by carrying across portages, to pass into any tributary of the 

 Yukon, Mackenzie, and St. Lawrence rivers — the longest inland journey 

 by water possible in the world. One could even cross the watershed 

 between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi, and pass on to New 

 Orleans. In eastern United States only poor dugouts were known. 

 On the Missouri River a crate of sticks was covered with hide of the 

 buffalo, and called a bull boat. On the Pacific coast of North America 

 canoes capable of making sea voyages of 500 miles were dug out from 

 the stem of a single tree. The same is true of the Caribbean area, 

 where the Caribs, in similar craft, visited every land around the bor- 

 ders of that sheet of water. On the shores of Brazil fishing parties 

 went out of sight of the land in sangadas of light logs, which were 

 fitted with sails. Floats of reed were known in the southern States 

 of the Union and on the west coast all the way from middle California 

 to southern Peru. In central Brazil a " wood skin." cut from the hark 

 of a tree in a few minutes, was a common means of transportation, 

 and the Fuegians made seaworthy craft by sewing three pieces of 

 bark together, one forming the bottom and the other two th<- sides. 



