188 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



In commenting on these tools, Dr. Abbott observes : — "As these semi-lunar 

 knives are more abundant in New England than in the Middle States, and do 

 not appear to have been in use among the southern coast-tribes, it is probable 

 that the pattern is derived from the Eskimos, with whom the northern Algonkins 

 were frequently in contact."* This appears to me entirely probable. 



BOATS AND APPURTENANCES. 



Boats. — The simple craft of the Indians are alluded to in the earliest works 

 on North America, but very little of a descriptive character is given, excepting 

 in the first volume of De Bry, which contains an account of the manufacture of 

 boats hollowed out of stems of trees.f It does not seem that in this country 

 circumstances have favored the preservation of boats for a considerable time, 

 the only case known to me being that recorded by Colonel Charles C. Jones. 

 He says : — 



Fig. 337. — Boat, exhumed uear Savannah. 



" In 1845, while digging a canal on one of the rice-plantations on the 

 Savannah River, located only a few miles distant from the city of Savannah, at 

 a depth of three feet and a half below the surface of the swamp, the workmen 

 came upon a canoe embedded in the soil. It answered to the description of Avhat 

 is familiarly known as a ducj-out, and had been fashioned from the trunk of a 

 cypress-tree. About eleven feet long and thirty inches wide, its depth was 

 scarcely more than ten inches. Both bow and stern Avere strengthened, each by 

 a wooden brace kept in position by wooden pins passing through the sides of the 

 canoe and entering the braces at either end. This boat curved upward at either 

 end, so that the bow and stern rose above the middle portion. Located about 

 three feet from the stern was a seat nine inches wide, consisting of a rude cypress- 

 plank. For its reception the sides of the canoe had been notched three inches 

 below the gunwales, and it was further kept in position by four wooden pins — 

 two on each side — driven through the boat and entering the seat at either end, 

 as in the case of the bow and stern braces. 



" The bottom was flat, the sides rounding. No eifort had been made to form 



* Abbott: Primilivo Industry ; p. 64. 

 fSee "Extracts." 



