40 December 1749.^ 



claws of birds and brads. Some of thefe 

 ancient harpoons are very blunt, and it 

 feems that the Indians m ght kill birds and 

 fmall quadrupeds with them ; but wrier 

 ther they could enter deep into the body 

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

 city which they get from the bow, I can- 

 not afcertain ; yet fome have been found 

 very (harp and well made. 



THEY \wAJlonepeftIes, about a foot long, 

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

 chiefly of a black fort of a ftone, and were 

 formerly employed, by the Indians, for 

 pounding maize, which has, fince 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 aflonifhed beyond expref- 

 fion, when the French fet up the firft wind- 

 mill. They came in numbers, even from 

 the moft diftant parts, to view this wonder, 

 and were not tired with fitting near it for 

 feveral days together, in order to obferve 

 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 



