224: GILPIN ON THE STONE AGE OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



in the young and women,) but are from their carrying burdens 

 raised upwards, especially the right. The leg is bowed but very 

 fine, the bend high up beneath the knee, and also like the famed 

 Roman tibia rounding forward. The hands and feet fine, especi- 

 ally the instep of the last. A clay-yellow, slight, active, under- 

 sized figure, beardless almost, but with abundant coarse black hair, 

 with intelligent rather than bright eyes, slightly Roman nose, but 

 the nostrils very wide, strong angular jaw, and strong teeth. 



Such is the fast fleeting type of our present Indian, and such no 

 doubt was that of our prehistoric man, but with feature and 

 expression intensified by their daily life. 



Their daily scramble for food, their hourly fears of enemies or 

 attack, their half clad exposure to the elements, must have all 

 written their marks, now somewhat obliterated in their descendants. 

 The late Dr. Webster, of Kentville, found in old Indian graves so 

 many bones of the fore arm (radius) crooked, that he supposed their 

 shape was modified by drawing a bow. 



To the question had not the age of iron come down upon him, 

 bad he the power to maintain himself, or to improve his condition ? 

 we must answer, the progress would be so gradual, the contingen- 

 cies so many against him, that he had not arrived yet at any fixed 

 point from which he could not fall back. There is no recorded 

 instance of an inferior race improved by a dominant one. They 

 disappear before them. Many assert they are unable, but it is 

 better to say the progress is so slow that it cannot be measured. 



How this Stone Age was conducive to the highest vigor of mind 

 and body, the history of Membertou, the powerful Sachem of 

 Annapolis valley, so graphically touched by the French historian, is 

 a rare record of exquisite beauty. 



One hundred years had gone down upon a head on which there 

 was no silver stain ; the eye that surpassed the lively Frenchman in 

 seeing at a distance, had had one hundred years of outlook. He 

 loved wine because it made him forget his cares at an age when 

 men have few cares. His active brain was meditating for months 

 and years a war against the tribes beyond the Kenebeck ; and 

 he brought his men from Gaspe and St. John River, joining them 

 with his own at a rendezvous at Grand Manan, and himself at that 



