1878.] Relic Hunting on the Mohawk. 785 
implements such as knives, scrapers, borers, drills and others of . 
unknown or not obvious uses, are abundant. Figs. 28 to 30 show 
a few of these latter forms. 
The foregoing are specimens of what the Mohawks used 
during their Stone Age, but relics are abundant that were brought 
in at a very early day by the whites. Such are beads of various 
kinds, pipes and nondescript fragments of cop- ANY 
É 
Fic, 31.—Trade Axe. 
ong which are the axes, Fig. 31, 
which although rude and clumsy in the extreme, were yet a great 
acquisition to men who had for generations, with infinite labor, 
wrought axes out of the flinty rock. These trade axes probably 
began to supersede those of stone previous to the year 1600, for 
Champlain in his expedition against the Mohawks in 1609 speaks 
of them as cutting down trees “ with villainous axes of stone, 
and also of iron, which latter they had captured from their ene- 
mies; their enemies were either the Indians of Canada, who 
obtained iron from the French as early as 1535, or of those 
southern tribes with whom the Mohawks were always at war. 
In conclusion, I feel how impossible it is to do justice to this 
subject in so small a space. The extent of it can be imagined 
from the fact that the few forms here shown are from a collection 
of several thousand specimens. It is sufficient, however, to — 
throw some light upon the manner of life and the progress of a 
people who filled so conspicuous a place in history at a time 
when European nations were struggling to gain a foothold in this 
western wilderness. > 
