30 Field and Forest Rambles. 



pose for which they were applied. These are sometimes met with 

 in numbers huddled together, and, in consequence, it has often 

 occurred to me that they were merely implements in the first 

 stage of manufacture. Now when we consider that the country 

 is covered with snow for nearly half of the year, and take the 

 rigours of the climate into account, together with the necessities 

 of a sparsely distributed population subsisting entirely by the 

 chase and fishing, we might well believe that they would lay in 

 a supply of weapons for winter use, and nothing is more likely 

 than that the unfinished tools were merely chipped into shape, 

 their polishing and finishing being left to such time as neces- 

 sity demanded.* 



Fig. 8 is the common form of knife. I believe flakes of 

 flint were used for the same purposes. The c'ub-shaped 

 implement (No. 7) of greenstone is a foot in length, and highly 

 polished ; it was discovered, with several stone arrow heads, 

 including fig. 3, and some hatchets, in a spruce-bark coffin 

 containing the remains of a warrior. Unfortunately, the above 

 is the only one of such-like relics that I had an opportunity of 

 examining ; its larger extremity is bevelled off to a blunt edge, 

 with several rude transverse lines at the further end. It would 

 be difficult to guess the precise use to which this celt was 

 applied. I showed it to several old Indians, but one only 

 ventured an opinion to the effect that it might have been used 

 for separating the bark from birch and other trees. Scoops 

 and smaller stone tools, besides hooks and needles of bone, 

 are met with on the sites of old encampments and under the 

 foundations of the log huts occupied by the remains of the 

 tribes, who, like remnants of other primitive races, still display 

 a preference for their ancient haunts, lingering on in small 



* Dr. Dawson, referring to the stone implements of this region, remarks 

 (" Acadian Geology," p. 41) that both the chipped and polished were used 

 at the same time for different purposes . This is probable, no doubt, to 

 some extent ; but several spear heads and stone hatchets appear to me so 

 imperfectly fabricated as to be at best inoperative as war implements, and 

 certainly next to useless for the chase, wood-cutting, or ice digging. 



