102 
in tlie newly-reclaimed wilderness ; and I have lived in the 
woods, far away from the sound of the busy world, and have 
seen the Red Indian in his wild abode : and after this 
experience, when I have gathered up the flint relics of the 
people who lived at Bridlington at least three thousand years 
ago, with nothing around them but a population of unculti- 
vated people, such as may be met with along the frontiers 
of any newly-settled country, I have not been inclined to 
despise them, on the contrary, I know they may have been 
far less vicious than the pioneers of our modern civilized 
community; and it is not probable that they had any 
spirituous liquor to madden their intellect, and spread 
desolation among their people. I know they were in the 
most primitive condition ; that their wants were few, and 
easily supplied. They built their log hut, which was their 
home. The land was all open to them to be cultivated, and 
well covered with wild animals. It only required the 
ingenuity to invent or form hooks, spears, and arrows, and 
tools to prepare the surface of the soil, and they could insure 
abundance of food ; and in the most primitive condition this 
was the sine qua non of existence. Now, these relics show 
that they were capable of inventing or imitating these things 
for their use, and of accumulating inventions, and becoming 
thereby more masters of creation, and improved in their 
social condition. Their conventionalities restrained them, 
and were enforced without a doubt in the same manner as 
the native Americans and the Maories regulate their society. 
Their instincts were the same, and they reasoned as men. 
From this starting-point we may trace the evidence of their 
improvement by the implements they have left on the fields ; 
in the remains of their homes; by their fortifications and 
enclosures for their cattle; their stone circles for religious 
purposes ; as well as their tumuli, cromlechs, and memorial 
pillars ; but I have to confine myself to their flint implements. 
