79 



Period. These were used for removing tlio remnants of flesh and muscle 

 from the edges and corners of the skin in phaces not reached b}^ the Larger 

 implements. To cut and sew the skin, when dressed, other implements 

 were required. The knife figured under the Fishing Period had been by 

 this time much improved in its general finish by being ground smooth over 

 its entire surface, instead of merely at the cutting edge. No. 16054 shows 

 a fine example of this type. These knives, of course, were nsed for many 

 other purjioses besides cutting the dressed skins; but for this they were 

 better than scissors, not cutting the hair. Something similar is used by 

 all furriers. For piercing the skin, in order to insert the thread, an awl 

 was used. This, from the earliest times^ was preferably of the wing- 

 bones of birds. They answered the purpose better than other bones on 

 account of the hollow in them, and their harder textui-e, which made it 

 easier to keep them sharp. The more modern awls are the better finished, 

 but the general form is not changed from that of the primitive type. 

 One is figured above from the lower, and one from the upper. Mammalian 

 layer. With these things are found a great variety of whetstones 

 of all shapes and sizes, on which the bone and stone tools were 

 brought to a sharp edge. The thread was twisted, of whale-sinew, and 

 attached by a little resin, from the bark of pine or spruce drift-wood, to a 

 bit of quill or bristle, like a cobbler's " waxed end ", in lieu of a needle. In 

 the remains of a woman's work-basket, found in the uppermost layer in the 

 cave, were bits of this resin, evidently carefully treasured, with a little 

 birch-bark case (the bark also derived from drift-logs), containing pieces 

 of soft haematite, graphite, and blue carbonate of copper, with which the 

 ancient seamstress ornamented her handiwork. There were also a multi- 

 tude of little bone splinters, used as needles or awls. Among the modern 

 Aleuts, the fibers of baleen were formerly made use of for a similar purpose. 

 These things were once inclosed in a basket of woven grass, which had 

 fshared the fate of its owner, and passed away. I suppose that the birch- 

 bark was also used by these natives as tinder, for which its resinous prop- 

 erties peculiarly adapt it. Up to the close of the Fisliing Period, though 

 it is incredible that they should not have been acquainted with the use of 

 fire, yet there are no evidences of its having been used in any way. We 



