Till: MODERN PERIOD. 



19 



several interesting papers have appeared in the Transactions of the 

 Nova Scotia Institute. The numerous "KjdkkeumBdding" or piles 

 <>f culinary debris occurring on the coast bav< been in i. 



part explored, and have been found to contain shells of 

 most of the edible molluscs of the coast and bones of the 

 ordinary modern mammals, birds, and fishes, with stone 

 implements and fragments of rude pottery. All these re- 

 mains are probably referable to the Micmacs ; and nothing 

 definite seems to have been discOT ered as to anj prei ion- 

 race, though Micmac tradition, according to Mr Rand, points 

 to a previous people, probably of the Tinneor ( !hippewyan 

 stoek, and allied to the Red Indians of Newfoundland. 



Chips of stone found at old arrow-making places in 

 Lunenburg, Pictou, and Prince Edward Island, show 

 that the Micmacs had ransacked all sorts of repositories 

 of useful stones, aud were in the habit of availing them- 

 selves of a great variety of agates, jaspers, quartzites, £ 

 and bard slates in the manufacture of chipped weapons, 

 while diorite and hard quartzose slate were favourite 

 materials for polished tools. A bone fish-spear or har- 

 poon, found by Dr Patterson at Merigomish, is the only 

 implement of this kind I have seen (Fig. 1). It is 

 ingeniously barbed, much after the maimer of the modern 

 Esquimaux harpoons, or some of those belonging to 

 prehistoric Europe. All the earthenware that I have 

 seen is of rude manufacture, and the patterns less tasteful 

 than in those of the inland agricultural nations. The few 

 tobacco-pipes found are similar to those of the other 

 Algonquin tribes. Tobacco, according to Lescarbot, was 

 used by the Micmacs, but they did not cultivate ' it, 

 obtaining their supplies from tribes further to the 

 south, and in default of such supplies, using, like other 

 northern tribes, native narcotic herbs. The modern 

 Micmacs sometimes extemporise a tobacco-pipe in the 

 form of an ingeniously twisted cone of birch bark. il 

 this habit existed among their ancestors, it would 

 account for the comparative paucity of stone pipes. 



4. THE POST-PLIOCEXK. 



Climate. — At p. 78, Chap. A'., I have remarked on the fact that 

 while the climate of Western Europe in the Pleistocene period, as 



B 



