45 
their full significance becomes apparent. At present we can fairly claim 
that they may indicate no more than local variations of a single culture 
that extended all along the coast. 
Our comparison of the shell-heap and modern cultures along this 
coast, and of the shell-heap culture in its northern and southern portions, 
has yielded so far no very definite results, and thrown no light on our 
present problem, the antiquity of the shell-heaps themselves. Let us now 
compare the shell-heaps on the coast with the archaeological remains from 
the Salish country on Fraser and Thompson rivers, in the southern interior 
of British Columbia. Immediately some striking differences are noticed. 
Common or present in the interior, but rare or absent on the coast, are 
drills, knives, and skin sc r apers chipped from stone, tubular pipes, semi- 
cylindrical arrow-shaft smoothers, dice made of beaver incisor teeth, and 
crossbar handles for digging sticks. In contrast with this we find on the 
coast, what are rare or absent in the interior, points made of bone, and 
celts mounted in antler heads. Rubbed stone points, too, are as common as 
chipped points, whereas tie latter greatly predominate in the interior. 
Art is much more strongly developed in the coast remains, stone pestles 
differ in shape from those of the interior, and graves contain few or no 
objects. Even the dentalia shells which were derived from the adjacent 
waters are rare in the coast remains, but common in the graves of the 
interior. But the ancient culture in the interior seems to be the same as 
that of the Indians still living there, who have a different culture from the 
Indians of the coast. We seem justified, therefore, in considering the old 
coast and the old interior cultures to be quite distinct. Both are pre- 
European; but whether they are contemporaneous, or whether one is of 
later date than the other, cannot at present be determined. 
Our study of the objects found in the shell-heaps shows that, at some 
time preceding European discovery, there was a difference in the culture 
of the coast and of the interior Indians, as there is today; there were slight 
variations in the coast culture that also parallel present conditions, and 
apparently merge with them; and there was a tribe or tribes of peculiar 
physical appearance inhabiting a portion of the coast in the old shell-heap 
days that has uot been recognized in the modern population. But it has 
not told us the real age of any of the shell-heaps, whether they go back 300 
years, or 3,000. Can we learn more if w T e call other sciences to our aid? 
Palaeontology offers no help. The shells and animal remains found in 
the heaps all belong to existing species, with no indication that sufficient 
time has elapsed for noticeable development since they were discarded. 
Sea-otter bones were numerous in the heaps near Yakan point, in Queen 
Charlotte islands, but that animal was still plentiful at the time of European 
discovery. 
Let us turn then to geology. The majority of the shell-heaps parallel 
the water-front so closely that they are often eroded by the surf. Some lie 
on raised beaches, bi t the beaches may well have been raised long before 
any houses were erected upon them. Two sites lie so far from the present 
coast-line that they merit special consideration. One, a little south of 
Vancouver, is a long, deep shell-heap built along the top of an old sandspit 
projecting northeast from the high land of point Roberts. The spit now 
lies half a mile from the sea, and runs at an angle to the shoreline. Appar- 
ently it represents the older shoreline before the bay was silted up. If the 
shell-heap were contemporaneous with this older shoreline (and we know 
