40 December 1740. 



claws of birds and Beafts. Some of thefe 

 ancient harpoons are very blunt, and it 

 feems that the Indians might kill birds and 

 fmall quadrupeds with them ; but whe- 

 ther they could enter deep into the body 

 of a great bead or of a man, by the velo- 

 city which they get from the bow, I can- 

 not afcertain ; yet feme have been found 

 very {harp and well made. 



They had jhmpeftks 9 about a foot long, 

 and as thick as a man's arm. They conufl 

 chiefly of a black fort of a ftone, and were 

 formerly employed, by the Indians, for 

 pounding maize, which has, iince times 

 immemorial, been their chief and almoft 

 their only corn. They had neither wind- 

 mills, water-mills, nor hand-mills, to 

 grind it, and did not fo much as know a 

 mill, before the "Europeans came into the 

 country I have fpoken with old French- 

 men, in Canada, who told me, that the 

 Indians had been aftonifhed beyond expref- 

 fion, when the French fet up the nrft wind- 

 mill. They came in numbers, even from 

 the moll: diftant parts, to view this wonder, 

 and were not tired with fitting near it for 

 feveral days together, in order to obierve 

 it ; they were long of opinion that it was 

 not driven by the wind, but by the fpirits 

 who lived within it. They were "partly 



under 



