THE EEMAJNS OF CITIES OF THE STONE AGE. 93 



Lower St. Lawrence, in latitude 47 40", and at a 

 height of 1000 feet above the sea level, though 

 physical geographers place the northern limit of wheat 

 at the sea level far to the south of this. The Indians 

 could, therefore, easily cultivate this plant on the 

 warmer soil in southern exposures along the St. 

 Lawrence ; but they also used wild plants designated 

 as petun and kinnikinick. The habit was new to the 

 French. Cartier says : " They have an herb, of which 

 they store up a large quantity for winter, which they 

 esteem very much, and the use of which is confined to 

 the men. They use it in the following way. The 

 plant having been dried in the sun, they carry sus- 

 pended to the neck a little bag of skin containing the 

 dried leaves, along with a little pipe ( ( cornet/ 

 perhaps alluding to the trumpet-like shape usual at 

 Hochelaga) of stone or wood. Thus prepared, they 

 place a little of the powder of the herb in one end of 

 the pipe, and placing a live coal on it, draw their 

 breath through the other end until they fill themselves 

 with smoke, so that it issues from their mouth and 

 nostrils as from a chimney. They say that it keeps 

 them healthy and warm, and never go without it. 3 ' 

 Cartier's men tried the weed, but found it too hot and 

 " P e PP er 7 " f r their taste. This practice of smoking 

 tobacco, as well as lobelia and other narcotic weeds, 

 was universal in America, and is one of the few habits 

 which men calling themselves civilized have thought 

 fit to borrow from these barbarous tribes. It may 

 have originated in the attempt to repel mosquitoes 



