138 , FOSSIL MEN. 



They crowded around them, touched their garments, 

 and wept, as he says, for joy, but perhaps merely 

 because they were thoroughly overcome by the con- 

 templation of such rare and inimitable woman's work, 

 the like of which they had not seen,' nor had they 

 heard of such things except in the vague and uncertain 

 rumours of the cotton-clad Mexicans and mound- 

 builders, which may have reached the valley of the 

 St. Lawrence. Bone needles much finer than those 

 above figured were used by the Esquimaux, and 

 also by the American Indians. They abound in the 

 caves of the ' ' Reindeer period " in France, and that 

 they were used in the still earlier " Mammoth age " 

 seems to be proved by the discovery by Dr. Riviere of 

 needles in the Mentone Cave, and also by the character 

 of the ornamental head-dress of the Mentone skeleton. 

 Pengelly has also described a needle from below the 

 upper stalagmite of Kent's Cave, belonging therefore 

 to the period of the cave hygena and mammoth. He 

 regards it as too delicate to pierce the skins of 

 animals, but forgets that the skins sewed with it may 

 have been those of small fur-bearing quadrupeds, or 

 that it may have been used for embroidering with hair 

 or with vegetable fibres. We shall find, however, in 

 the sequel, reason to believe that by the ancient 

 Europeans, as well as by the Americans, they were 

 used to sew skin bags made to hold pemmican or 

 preserved meat, and that this may account for their 

 association with cracked bones in the caves. Their 

 use among the Americans was not only to sew to- 



