i6 Transactions of the Canadian Institute. [Vol. VII. 



might also refer the reader to what I have myself written on the same 

 subject in my "Notes on the Western Denes,* pages 130-132 inclu- 

 sively. This part of my study, though not intended to be exhaustive 

 at the time of its writing, might for the present, take the place of a 

 complete treatise on Dene medicine. But, though bleeding at least 

 was and remains a very prevalent practice among the natives, I have 

 been unable to discover more than one reference thereto in the whole 

 range of the American ethnographic literature at my command. Very 

 valuable and detailed monographs there are on almost all the chief 

 stocks into which the northern American race is divided, which 

 consider them from every possible standpoint, but, with the one above 

 mentioned exception, they invariably ignore the practice of bleeding so 

 much in vogue among the different tribes. 



My attention was lately drawn to this desideratum by an article 

 from the pen of the Rev. H. C. Meredith, published in the December 

 number of the American Archceologist.\ The cuts which accompany 

 his paper represent stone implements of such unique design as to 

 render them worthy of a moment's consideration. 



Those implements have quite a history. Found, close by Indian 

 skeletons, in the vicinity of Stockton, California, by several persons of 

 good social standing, some of them came into the possession of the 

 above-mentioned gentleman. To make a long story short, a few of the 

 latter subsequently passed into the hands of a South California collector 

 of antiquities who, after much hesitation and a consultation with a 

 would-be expert, pronounced them to be frauds and published his 

 opinion to that effect in the American Archceologist. One of his 

 main reasons for predicating dishonesty was that he "could not imagine 

 any practical use to which they could have been applied," an excuse 

 which is hardly satisfactory. Thereupon Mr. Meredith came up with a 

 spirited reply containing sworn affidavits and detailed information 

 which leave no doubt that his relics are genuine. A number of similar 

 objects had already, it seems, found their way into the United States 

 Museum, Washington, D.C., and it is probably of them that a Mr. 

 Lyman Belding wrote in Zoe,\ that they "differ from anything" he 

 had " seen elsewhere." 



Those implements are chiefly noticeable for three distinct features 

 which are more or less reproduced in all the specimens illustrated, 



* Trans. Can. Institute, No. 7. 



t The American Archtsologist, vol. II, p. 319. 



J Vol. III., p. 200. 



