152 FOSSIL MEN. 



worn by the chiefs of some South American tribes, 

 cost the labour of two men's lives. It is not surprising 

 that arts like these perish immediately on the intro- 

 duction of the implements of more civilized races, and 

 drop out of the memory of the successors of the artists 

 in a few generations. 



It is only under peculiar circumstances that arts 

 implying so much labour as well as contrivance can 

 flourish. The man whose whole energies are occupied 

 in providing for the ordinary wants of life cannot take 

 time to select particular kinds of stone, to construct 

 drills, and to work patiently for months or for years 

 in order that he may possess an unusually perfect or 

 finished implement. Hence, of two peoples similarly 

 constituted, and in a similar stage of culture, one may 

 be quite unable to indulge in such luxuries of art, 

 while another more favourably situated may abound 

 in them. 



It is interesting also to observe that under certain 

 conditions of external influence, the arts of a people 

 may change without any corresponding advance in 

 general civilization. For example, the 'natives of the 

 Queen Charlotte Islands, on the west coast of British 

 America, are remarkable, like other tribes on that 

 coast, for strange and grotesque carvings in a black 

 argillaceous stone, and which sometimes remind one 

 of Chinese carvings in agalmatolite. Yet some of 

 these tribes, since they have come into contact with 

 Europeans, and have found their carvings capable of 

 being made into articles of merchandise, have invented 



