OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. II3 



yards below the beds of rivers in Scotland, England, France and 

 Italy, canoes still containing the stone axe with which they were dug, 

 and lying beside the bones of men, and of the elephas primigenius 

 or mammoth, with which they were contemporary. These canoes 

 were from ten to fifty feet long, and from two to fourteen feet wide." 

 M. Joly considers the use of these canoes for long trading voyages an 

 impossibility, yet on the same page he gives an instance of canoes 

 being used to carry flints from France to the islands of Elba, Sardinia 

 and Pianosa, and also of men bringing from Sardinia to the other 

 two pieces, of black obsidian rock, foreign to these islands, from 

 which the natives made knives as sharp as those of Mexico. 



The ancient Americans used canoes for long trading voyages, 

 and the Peruvians understood the use of sails and the rudder. 

 Columbus when on his fourth voyage, landed on one of the Guanaja 

 Islands, and while there saw a large trading canoe, which from the 

 statements made by the cacique on board, was supposed to have 

 come from Yutacan, a distance of about forty leagues, and over a sea 

 the tempestuousness of which daunted even the hardy sailors of the 

 Spanish fleet. This canoe although formed out of a single tree, was 

 about eight feet wide, and had twenty-five rowers. In the 

 centre of the canoe there was a tent or awning, under which 

 the cacique and his wives sat. Bartholomew Ruiz, the pilot 

 of the expedition for the conquest of Peru, encountered 

 in the open Pacific, a Peruvian balsa, formed of huge timbers of 

 light porous wood, with a flooring of reeds. This balsa had two 

 masts which sustained a large square cotton sail, and was constructed 

 with a movable keel and rudder. On board Ruiz found ornaments 

 wrought in silver and gold, vases and mirrors of burnished silver, 

 curious fabrics both of cotton and woollen, and a pair of balances made 

 to weigh the precious metals, The balsa had come from a Peruvian 

 port, some degrees to the south, and the crew consisted of both men 

 and women, and carried provisions for the voyage. Here then we 

 see that the natives of Yutacan were accustomed to take long voya- 

 ges in canoes, and that the ancient Peruvian navigators understood 

 the use of sails and the rudder. 



The Polynesians, long before the advent of whalers and trading 

 vessels in these seas, are known to have had intercourse with each 

 other. The Tonga people are known to have had dealings with 



