﻿406 Canadian Record of Science. 



there being sufficient differences in the analysis of the 

 native copper from tUfferent localities in the region in 

 which we are assembled, for Canadian Archaeologists to 

 fix the sources from which the metal was obtained which 

 was used in the manufacture of the ancient tools and 

 weapons of copper that are occasionally discovered in this 

 part of the globe. 



Like Chemistry, Mineralogy and Petrology may be 

 called to the assistance of Archaeology in determining the 

 nature and source of the rocks of which ancient stone 

 implements are made ; and, thanks to researches of the 

 followers of those sciences, the old view that all such 

 implements formed of jade and found in Europe must of 

 necessity have been fashioned from material imported 

 from Asia can no longer be maintained. In one respect 

 the Archaeologist differs in opinion from the Mineralogist, 

 namely, as to the propriety of chipping off fragments from 

 perfect and highly-finished specimens for the purpose 

 of submitting them to microscopic examination, 



I have hitherto been speaking of the aid that other 

 sciences can afford to Archaeology when dealing with 

 questions that come almost, if not quite, within the fringe 

 of history, and belong to times when the surface of 

 our earth presented much the same configuration as 

 regards the distribution of land and water, and hill 

 and valley, as it does at present, and when, in all 

 probability, the climate was much the same as it now is. 

 When, however, we come to discuss that remote age 

 in which we find the earliest traces that are at present 

 known of man's appearance upon earth, the aid of Geology 

 and PaltTontology becomes absolutely imperative. 



The chanqes in the surface configuration and in the 

 extent of the land, especially in a country like Britain, as 

 well as the modifications of the fauna and flora since those 

 days, have been such that the Archaeologist pure and 

 simple is incompetent to deal with them, and he must 



