58 DR. DANIEL WILSON ON 
on the one hand, and the makers of the argillite spearpoints on the other, stand in the 
relationship of ancestor and descendant; and if the latter, as is probable, is in turn the 
ancestor of the modern Eskimo, then does it not follow that the River-drift and Cave-man 
of Europe, supposing the relationship of the latter to the Eskimo to be correct, bear the 
same close relationship to each other as do the American representatives of these earliest of 
people ? ”* 
An appeal to European archæology can scarcely fail to suggest some very striking 
contrasts thereby involved. As the thoughtful student dwells on all the phenomena of 
change and geological revolution which he has to encounter in seeking to assign to the 
man of the European drift his place in vanished centuries, his mind is lost in amazement 
at the vista of that long-forgotten past. Yet inadequate as the intermediate steps may 
appear, there are progressive stages. Amid all the overwhelming sense of the vastness of 
the period embraced in the changes which he reviews, the mind rests from time to time at 
well defined stations, in tracking the way backward, through ages of historical antiquity, 
into the night of time, and so to that dim dawn of mechanical skill and rational industry 
in which the first tool-makers plied their ingenious arts. But, so far as yet appears, it is 
wholly otherwise throughout this whole western continent, from the gulf of Mexico, north- 
ward to the pole. North America has indeed a copper age of its own very markedly 
defined ; for the shores and islands of Lake Superior are rich in pure native copper, avail- 
able for industrial resources without even the most rudimentary knowledge of metallurgic 
arts. But the tools and personal ornaments fashioned out of this more workable material are 
little, if at all, in advance of the implements of stone; and, with this exception, the 
primitive industry of North America manifests wondrously slight traces of progression 
through all the ages now assigned to man’s presence on the continent. 
The means available for forming some just estimate of the character of native American 
art are now abundant. In the National Museum at Washington; the Peabody Museum 
at Cambridge, Mass.; the Peabody Academy at Salem; the Academy of Natural Sciences 
at Philadelphia; the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Mass. ; and in various 
Historical Societies and University Museum’s throughout the States: the student of 
American archeology has the means of obtaining a comprehensive view of the native arts. 
At the Centennial Exposition of Philadelphia in 1876, the various States vied with one 
another in producing an adequate representation of the antiquities specially characteristic 
of their own localities; and numerous valuable reports, of the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion, the United States Geographical Surveys, the Geological Survey of Canada, and 
the Geological Surveys of various States, have furnished the required data for determining 
the prehistoric chroniclings of the northern continent. 
One of the latest publications of this class is Dr. Abbott's own volume, entitled 
“Primitive Industry; or illustrations of the handiwork in stone, bone and clay of the 
native races of the Northern Atlantic seaboard of America.” It isa most instructive epitome 
of North American: Archeology. Notwithstanding the limits set in the title, works in 
metal as well as in stone are included; and what are the results? Twenty-one out of its 
twenty-three chapters are devoted to the detailed illustrations of stone and flint axes, celts, 
hammers, chisels, scrapers, drills, knives, &c. Fish-hooks, fish-spears, awls or bodkins, and 

* Primitive Industry, p. 517. 
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