LOST ARTS OP PRIMITIVE RACES. 165 



It is a remarkable fact that our researches on the 

 site of Hochelaga have disclosed so few relics of this 

 trade and intercourse which existed between the 

 nations of distant parts of America, and of which, as 

 we have seen, we have evidence in the narrative of 

 Cartier, as well as in the objects found elsewhere. 

 Of this the relics of Hochelaga show little except a 

 few copper beads ; and, beside the two small pieces of 

 metal already referred to, nothing of the numerous 

 tools and trinkets left by Cartier himself. Yet one of 

 these fragments the little piece of brass mentioned 

 in a previous paper may have been a part of one of 

 Cartier's crosses, which it is not unlikely were cut up 

 into small pieces and distributed to different persons, 

 or disposed of in trade with less fortunate tribes. 

 This absence of evidence of commercial intercourse 

 may be accounted for in one of two ways. At the 

 time of Cartier' s visit, the people of Hochelaga, owing 

 to the hostility of the Hurons on the west, and of 

 the Iroquois on the south, were very much isolated, 

 and may for a long time have lost the intercourse 

 with foreign nations which they had once enjoyed. 

 Changes of this kind tending to isolate tribes, often 

 reduce them to great scarcity or absolute want of 

 foreign commodities, and may account for such re- 

 markable differences as have been observed in this 

 respect between the people of the older and more 

 recent Palaeolithic ages in Europe by Dupont and 

 others, the oldest European race being evidently 

 better supplied with foreign objects than that which 



