134 FOSSIL MEN. 



whether the oldest European tribes tapped trees or 

 dug out troughs or canoes. Still, as these hollow 

 chisels, if they existed, would be found by themselves 

 and not associated with chipped implements, the in- 

 veterate prejudice which regards polished and chipped 

 implements as of different ages would probably dis- 

 sociate them from the contemporary remains. 



Bone was extensively used in America as in Europe, 

 for a great variety of purposes, but the perishable 

 nature of bone implements causes them to be difficult 

 of recovery even from sites so modern comparatively 

 as that of Hochelaga. Fortunately, however, some of 

 these implements may still be found in use among 

 our western tribes. The American bone fish-spear or 

 harpoon is constructed on the same plan with that 

 of pre-historic Europe, and the visitor to the British 

 Museum may see bone harpoons from the caves of the 

 reindeer folk in France, so like those in the same col- 

 lection from Greenland and Terra del Fuego that all 

 might have come from the same workshop. As Rau 

 has pointed out, they have even the little grooves 

 cut in the barbs to allow the blood of the wounded 

 animal more readily to flow, a requirement not found 

 in some of the American harpoons, or in those of more 

 modern times, though attended to in the arrow-shafts 

 of the Plain Indians who hunt the buffalo. The fish- 

 spear was always an important means of subsistence 

 with the American savage. In the south large fish 

 were killed with spears made of canes, with the point 

 sharpened and hardened in the fire. In the north 



