VALLEY OF THE BLACK RIVER 39 



large arrow-heads of the usual type. The only 

 arrow-heads at this spot were about half an inch 

 long, and were probably used only to shoot small 

 birds and mammals. Not only were they minute 

 but most exquisitely finished, with a fine serration, 

 and, without an exception, made of some beauti- 

 ful stone crystal, agate, and green, yellow, and 

 horn-colored flint. It was impossible to take half- 

 a-dozen of these gems of color and workmanship 

 in the hand and not be impressed at once with the 

 idea that beauty had been as much an aim to the 

 worker as utility. Along with these fine arrow- 

 heads I found nothing except one small well- 

 pointed dagger of red stone, its handle a cross, 

 about four inches long, and as slender and almost 

 as well-rounded as an ordinary lead pencil. 



"When on this quest I sometimes attempted to 

 picture to myself something of the outer and 

 inner life of the long-vanished inhabitants. The 

 red men of to-day may be of the same race and 

 blood, the lineal descendants of the workers in 

 stone in Patagonia; but they are without doubt 

 so changed, and have lost so much, that their pro- 

 genitors would not know them, nor acknowledge 

 them as relations. Here, as in North America, 

 contact with a superior race has debased them 

 and ensured their destruction. Some of their wild 

 blood will continue to flow in the veins of those 

 who have taken their place ; but as a race they will 

 be blotted out from earth, as utterly extinct in a 

 few decades as the mound-makers of the Missis- 



