13i MATERIAL USED FOR STONE IMPLEMENTS. 



The flint, of which the flakes and arrow-heads were 

 formed, must have conie from a distance, and the best pieces 

 in all probability were obtained from France. Yisits may 

 have been made to the French quarries, just as Gatlin tells us 

 that the American tribes, from far and near, visited the red 

 pipestone quarry of Coteau des Prairies. A few fragments 

 of Mediterranean coral have been found at Concise, and of 

 Baltic amber at Meilen. Some archaeologists have argued 

 from these facts, that there must have been a certain amount 

 of commerce even in the Stone age. As, however, both these 

 settlements appear to have belonged to the transitional period 

 between the age of Stone and that of Bronze, it would be 

 safer to refer both the amber and the coral to the later period. 



But the most important fact of this nature is the presence 

 of nephrite. This rock is not known to occur in the Alps, 

 or, indeed, in Europe ; some archaeologists have suggested 

 that it may possibly have been obtained from the conglome- 

 rate known as the "Nagelflue," others think that it must 

 have been introduced from the East. Even if this is the 

 case, it would not be any proof of commerce, properly so 

 called; but I should rather be disposed to think that the 

 nephrite had passed from hand to hand, and from tribe 

 to tribe, by a sort of barter. Other facts of a similar 

 nature are on record. Thus, Messrs. Squier and Davis 

 tell us, that in the tumuli of the Mississippi valley, 

 we find "side by side, in the same mounds, native copper 

 from Lake Superior, mica from the Alleghanies, shells from 

 the Gulf, and obsidian (perhaps porphyry) from Mexico." 

 Good representations of the sea-cow, or manatee, are found 

 a thousand miles from the shores inhabited by that animal, 

 and shells of the large tropical Pyrula perversa are found in 

 the tumuli round the great lakes, two thousand miles from 

 home. 



Like other savages, the Lake -dwellers made the most 



