FOSSIL MAN. 267 



fact that these simply designed spear-points are 

 all of argillite, the same material of which are 

 made the rude implements found in the gravel. 

 There is, therefore, no break, as it were, in the 

 sequence of events in the occupation of the re- 

 gion by man no change of race, no evidence of 

 an abrupt transition from one method of tool- 

 making o that of another, but merely an improve- 

 ment that was doubtless as gradual as the 

 change from the epoch of glacial cold to that of 

 our moderate climate of to-day. What at first 

 sight appears fatal to the views here expressed 

 is that a people so far advanced as to make 

 these spear-points should have made many other 

 forms of stone implements ; but only the former 

 are found deeply buried in the mud of the river. 

 If, as is believed, the spears were used in fishing 

 more than for any other purpose, they alone 

 would be likely to be lost. Other objects in use 

 upon their village sites would seldom, if ever, 

 be taken to the fishing-grounds ; and, as a mat- 

 ter of fact, there are found numbers of stone ob- 

 jects of a rude character, usually considered of 

 Indian origin, but which are identical with those 

 used, for instance, by the boreal Chukches. In 

 Nordenskiold's Voyage of the Vega is described a 

 series of stone hammers and a stone anvil which 

 are in use to-day for crushing bones. Every 

 considerable collection of " Indian relics " gath- 

 19 



