THE MODERN PERIOD. 



19 



several interesting" papers Lave appeared in the Transactions of tlic 

 Nova Scotia Institute. The numerous " Kjoklvenmodding" or piles 

 of culinary debris occurring on the coast have been in fjo-. 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 discovered as to any previous 

 race, though Micmac tradition, according to ^Ir Rand, points 

 to aj^revious people, probably of the Tinne or Chi])pe\vyan 

 stock, and allied to the Red Indians of Newfoundland. 



Chips of stone found at old arrow-making j^laccs in 

 Lunenburg, Pictou, and Prince Edward Island, show 

 that the Micmacs had ransacked all sorts of repositories 

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

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

 and hard 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 manner 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 l.escarbot, was 

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

 obtaining their supplies from tribes further to the 

 south, and in deHxult 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. If 

 this habit existed among their ancestors, it would 

 account for the comparative paucity of stone pipes. 



4. THE PUST-PLIOCENE. 



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

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



u 



