DODBLE-l'OINTED STONE IMPLEMENTS. 117 



the mammoth in Europe fashioned his rude implements of flint. An inference of 

 such stupendous bearing should not be accepted without incontrovertible proofs, 

 and these, it seems to me, have not yet been furnished. If, ultimately, what now 

 appears almost incredible, should become an established fact, all doubts, of course, 

 will be removed. 



While treating of prehistoric fishing in Europe, I was enabled to divide the 

 subject into different sections, devoting each of them to a special phase of human 

 existence. But such a mode of proceeding would hardly be applicable to North 

 America, and I prefer describing, in proper succession, such relics bearing upon 

 fishing as may be called prehistoric, according to the explanation of the term as 

 given on a preceding page. 



The abundance of fish in the rivers and lakes of North America not to 

 speak of the sea-boards excited the astonishment of the early European colo- 

 nists, who found the natives well acquainted with various modes of fishing, which 

 could only have been acquired by long-continued pursuits. Taking them as a 

 whole, they practised fishing by spearing and shooting, with hook and line, and 

 nets of various kinds, and they even knew how to stupefy fish by throwing 

 intoxicating substances into the water. They constructed traps, weirs, fish-pens, 

 and fish-preserves, and, finally, navigated, for the purpose of fishing, the streams, 

 lakes, and seas with boats varying greatly in size and make. 



All this will subsequently be set forth in a series of extracts from authors 

 who describe the natives of North America as they were when first observed, or 

 when their habits had not been materially changed by intercourse with the whites. 



For the rest, I abstain from giving any details concerning Indian mode of 

 life. The indigenous American still belongs to the present, and it may be pre- 

 supposed that his characteristics are known to the reader of this work. 



FISHING-IMPLEMENTS AND UTENSILS. 



Double-pointed straight Bait-holders. Among the many thousand North 

 American articles of flint and other stone exhibited in the United States National 

 Museum there is not one to which the above application could with any degree 

 of safety be assigned. Only a few among them possibly might have thus been 

 employed; but these constitute a fraction by far too small to form a type, or, in 

 other words, to represent a class of objects made for a common purpose. Never- 

 theless I will describe some of them. 



The original of Fig. 170, on the following page, is a chipped implement of 

 dark-gray jasper, found by Mr. Paul Schumacher near Rogue River, Oregon. It 

 is slender, and the points are rather blunt, apparently not from use, but in conse- 



