154 FOSSIL MEN. 



inlaid with mother-of-pearl. In short, these people 

 had made great progress in decorative art, or had 

 brought such art from Asia, or received it through 

 occasional Japanese junks wrecked on their coasts. 

 All this primitive art is now rapidly perishing, and 

 will soon be replaced by European arts and manufac- 

 tures, though the manner of life and subsistence of the 

 people remains in the main the same as before. The 

 Haida is still a fisherman, though tin pails may re- 

 place the carved wooden dishes of his fathers, and his 

 house may want altogether the grand carved posts, 

 replaced perhaps by a flag-staff. 



Agriculture may be extensively pursued by primi- 

 tive tribes, and if these tribes perish, or if they are 

 driven by reverses to adopt a nomadic life, their culture 

 of the earth may leave no appreciable remains behind, 

 and so far as antiquities are concerned, they may 

 appear to be a ruder people than one that has lived by 

 hunting or fishing. Tribes living in rock shelters, 

 or obliged to build with stone or earth, may leave 

 remains altogether exceptional in amount compared 

 with those which commemorate the existence of com- 

 paratively cultivated people living in wooden houses 

 and tilling the soil. The introduction of new tools 

 by foreign trade may indicate the very reverse of any 

 progress in culture or civilization in the rude tribes 

 who receive such new objects. 



Cartier, in 1535, found around the town of Hochelaga 

 " goodly and large " cultivated fields, and he speaks 

 of the Mountain of Montreal as tilled round about 



