FOSSIL MAN. 277 



ured these mighty beasts what time, lingering 

 by the blow-holes of the seal and walrus in 

 the frozen river, surprised and killed these creat- 

 ures with so simple a weapon as a sharply 

 chipped fragment of flinty rock. And, as the 

 centuries rolled by, and the river itself lessened 

 in bulk, until it but little more than filled its pres- 

 ent channel, there still remained along its shores 

 the more cultured descendants of the primitive 

 chipper of pebbles. As a savage, so like the 

 modern Eskimo that he has been held to be the 

 same, this pre-Indian people still wrought the 

 argillite that their ancestors were forced to use 

 for their palaeolithic tools ; and as these spear- 

 points are being gathered from the alluvial de- 

 posits of the more modern river, I can recall to 

 their accustomed haunts this long-gone people, 

 who, ere they gave place to the fierce Algonkin, 

 were the peaceful tenants of this river's valley. 

 Then as we gather the beautiful arrow-heads of 

 jasper and quartz, and pick from superficial soils 

 grooved axes, celts, chisels, curiously wrought 

 pipes, strange ornaments, ceremonial objects, and 

 fragments of pottery, literally without number, we 

 marvel at the skill of those who wrought them, 

 and faintly realize how long these comparatively 

 recent comers must have dwelt in this same val- 

 ley, to have accumulated such an endless store 

 of these imperishable relics. 



