. .^ . orlLriX — -ON THE STONE AGE OF NOVA SCOTIA. 



and that so imperfect that I could scarcely admit it, seen granite 

 used. The hornstone pebbles, so common about the Bay of Fundy 

 beaches, though to us well adapted for arrow-heads, seem never to 

 have been used. 



The stone instruments resolve themselves naturally into war and 

 hunting implements — arrow-heads, spear-heads, and javelins ; and 

 into household ones — hammers, axes, gouges, chisels, hand wedges 

 and knives. There are other implements found, very few in num- 

 ber, and whose uses we cannot apprehend. A stone shaped like an 

 old fashioned gorget with a hole pierced through its flat axis, other 

 egg-shaped stones, like sinkers. The very peculiar stone tubes of 

 foreign stone found on the line of the Dartmouth canal, a very 

 peculiar last shapen stone in the Mechanic's Museum, St» John, 

 N. B. ; other flat stones with holes pierced through them ; and 

 lastly, two circular stones, resembling a coiled snake, now in the 

 Provincial Museum. These last are so peculiar, and bear so 

 strongly on the universal snake worship papers lately put forward, 

 as in the absence of all tradition or history of such worship in this 

 province, to demand a paper to themselves. 



The arrow-heads are barbed and straight, some with tangs, oth- 

 ers without ; some of beautiful work, others rough. The very 

 characters of the old arrow makers are marked upon their work, 

 and some so small that they must have been playthings. To us 

 they seem all playthings, yet they were fixed to long shafts of great 

 polish, and feathered with the tail feathers of the eagle. An eagle 

 feather was worth a beaver skin, and LesCarbot saw at one wig- 

 wam five tame eagles with their tails cut off. The bow, probably 

 of ash, was coarse but very strong, and the French were amazed to 

 see among the dead brought home from the wars, a man and a dog 

 transfixed by the same shaft. Those arrow-heads that I have seen, 

 were chipped in making like those of all lands, except one which I 

 own ; that is polished like a celt, and is of hardened slate. 



The spear-heads are the next numerous. They seem to have 

 been both spears to carry in hand, and javelins to cast. They are 

 also made by chipping, and are usually formed like the unbarbed 

 arrow. A Ions; oval with cuttino; edg-es and tano^ on the handle to 

 fasten the shaft with. Many of these are so blunt and so broad, 



