LOST ARTS OF PRIMITIVE RACES. 159 



Let us now ask what trace of this ancient culture 

 remains ? The cornfields of Hochelaga, not even 

 ridged with the plough, would be overgrown with tall 

 trees within fifty years of the abandonment of the 

 site. The corn-cribs and wooden mortars had been 

 burned or have mouldered away. The plants culti- 

 vated were too tender to survive in a wild state. The 

 wooden hoes which Cartier tells were the ordinary 

 agricultural implements, have long ago perished, and if, 

 as was probably sometimes the case, they were tipped 

 with a flat stone, this was so roughly shaped, if 

 shaped at all, that when found it would scarcely be 

 recognised as even a Palaeolithic implement. May 

 not, then, the whole tale be a myth, its materials 

 furnished by the narratives of more southern voyagers, 

 and intended to exalt the new country in the opinion 

 of the French Government ? For all that could be 

 proved by any but a few slight indications, the search 

 for which was prompted by Cartier's narrative, it 

 might have been so, and Hochelaga might have been 

 inhabited by a tribe as rude as the Palasolithic people 

 of Europe are supposed to have been. The micro- 

 scope shows traces of charred corn-meal encrusting 

 the necks of some of the earthen pots ; and after 

 sifting a cartload or two of the kitchen-midden stuff 

 through wire sieves, I became the possessor of a dozen 

 or two of charred grains of corn and a cotyledon and 

 a half of the bean. Another collector found a charred 

 " corn cob." Besides this, I found evidence that the 

 wild plum and cherry, and even the acorn, had been 



