OE THE OLD AND NEW WOELD. 259 



Wisconsin for the far west, and from their rapidly diminishing num- 

 bers, cannot long survive as a distinct tribe, — and also, in special re- 

 ference to those of the remote north west, and on the shores of the 

 Pacific, to Mr. Paul Kane, along with the information derived from 

 inspecting a fine collection of Indian relics secured by him during 

 three years travel in the Hudson Bay Company's Territory, and 

 among the neighbouring tribes within the territories of the United 

 States. A comparison of the facts thus obtained with some of the 

 conclusions arrived at by others from the examination of the older 

 traces of the custom and usages of smoking, appear calculated to 

 throw some additional light on the latter, and especially to modify 

 the opinion derived from the investigation of examples of the ancient 

 arts of the Mound Builders, and other aboriginal traces of this con- 

 tinent. 



Insignificant, and even puerile, as the subject of the tobacco pipe 

 appears, it assumes an importance in many respects only second to 

 that of the osteological remains of the ancient races of this continent 

 when viewed as part of the materials of its unwritten history. In 

 Messrs. Squier and Davis' valuable " Contribution to Knowledge"* 

 the tobacco pipes found in the ancient sepulchral mounds of the 

 Mississippi Valley are specially noted as constituting not only a 

 numerous, but a highly interesting class of remains, on the con- 

 struction of which the artistic skill of their makers seems to have 

 been lavished with a degree of care and ingenuity bestowed on no 

 other works. " They are sculptured into singular devices : figures 

 of the human head, and of various beasts, birds, and reptiles. These 

 figures are all executed in miniature, but with great fidelity to nature." 

 Thus, for example, the authors remark in reference to one pipe-head 

 (Pig. 183, p. 268,) carved in the shape of a toad: the knotted, 

 corrugated skin is well represented, and the sculpture is so very 

 truthful that if placed in the grass before an unsuspecting observer, 

 it would probably be mistaken for the natural object ; and they further 

 add : " those who deem expression in sculpture the grand essential, 

 will find something to amuse as well as to admire, in the lugubrious 

 expression of the mouths of these specimens of the toad." The same 

 writers again remark, in describing the immense deposit of pipes 

 found on the " altar" of one of the great mounds in the Scioto 

 Valley, some of them calcined, and all more or less affected by the 

 fires of the ancient ceremonial of cremation or sacrifice : — " The 

 bowls of most of the pipes are carved in miniature figures of animals, 



* Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, pages 228, 229. 



