238 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ruthless socialism would be the adoption of very severe means for 

 suppressing those who did not contribute their share of work. 

 But in any case, as it seems, we never get away or break away 

 from the inevitable fact. If individual ends could be suppressed, 

 if every man worked for the good of society as energetically as 

 for his own, we should still feel the absolute necessity of propor- 

 tioning the whole body- to the whole supplies obtainable from the 

 planet, and to preserve the equilibrium of mankind relatively to 

 the rest of Nature. That day is probably distant, but even upon 

 that hypothesis the struggle for existence would still be with us, 

 and there would be the same necessity for preserving the fittest 

 and suppressing, as gently as might be, those who were unfit. 

 Contemporary Review. 



THE CALUMET IN THE CHAMPLAIN VALLEY. 



BY PROF. G. H. PEKKINS. 



OF the many interesting objects which have been found in 

 different localities in the United States none more fully 

 illustrate the artistic skill and taste of the aborigines than do 

 the stone pipes, and it is probably true that they represent the 

 finest work in stone which the Indian was able to execute. In 

 form, though not perhaps in material, the pipes exhibit greater 

 variety and less conformity to conventional types than do other 

 classes of prehistoric objects. No other specimens in our ar- 

 chaeological collections recall so completely the ceremonial usages 

 of the Indians as do the pipes; no other ob- 

 jects occupied so important a place among the 

 possessions of the tribe or the individual, as 

 the student of Indian customs soon learns. 



Pipes there may have been, and undoubt- 

 edly were, many of them of common mold, 

 which were used and regarded very much as 

 are modern pipes, simply as a means of social 

 or personal enjoyment, and these may have been 

 of earthenware, or even of wood or bone, more 

 often than of stone ; but the real calumet, the 

 elaborately wrought ceremonial pipe, was a 

 very different affair. With this were associated in the Indian 

 mind the most solemn ceremonies, the most impressive experi- 

 ences of life. Without the calumet no treaty could be ratified, 

 no war declared, no important tribal or religious question settled. 

 This single object combined in itself a dignity and an essential 

 significance which can hardly be overestimated. 



It is not strange, therefore, that the pipemaker should have 



FIG. 1. 



