EXTRACTS. 295 



expected. The nets are of two kinds : the scoop, which is precisely the same as 

 is used in the United States ; and 'the seine, which is also in principle exactly the 

 same ; and the knot used in netting also appears to me exactly the same : but in 

 this I may be mistaken, as I have never seen the operation performed. The 

 leaded line is formed by attaching oblong rounded stones, with a sunken groove 

 near the middle in which to wind the attaching ligature. Reeds are used for floats. 

 " The navigation of this region appears to have been confined to crossing the 

 streams when the water was too cold for comfortable swimming. The only 

 apparatus used was little more than a good raft, made of reeds which abound 

 on many of the streams. They are about eight feet long, and formed by placing 

 small bundles of reeds, with the butt-ends introduced and lashed together, with 

 their small ends outwards. Several of these bundles are lashed together beside 

 each other, and in such a manner as to form a cavity on top. There is no attempt 

 to make it tight ; the only dependence is on the great buoyancy of the materials 

 used. It is navigated with a stick, and almost entirely by pushing. This rude 

 form of navigation, apparently, is the only one ever used in the country, in which, 

 in fact, there is hardly timber enough for a more improved form." (Pages 211, 

 213, etc.). 



Catlin (George): Letters and Notes on the Manners, Customs, and Condition of 

 the North American Indians; New York, 1844. "The skin canoes of the Man- 



Fio. 36C. 



Flo. 3C7. 



FIGS. 366 and 367. Bull-hide boat and paddle of poplar wood, made by Minnetarees at Fort Berth- 

 old, Dakota. (9785).* 



* This boat, measuring in its present shrunken state five feet and four inches in diameter and two feet in 

 depth, was sent to the National Museum in 1870 by Dr. Washington Matthews, U. S. A. It is made of buffalo- 

 akin ; but he informs me that the Indians are now beginning to employ ox-hide, owing to the increasing scarcity 

 of buffalo. 



