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walrus tusk was found at Balsam lake, Victoria country, Ontario, it seems 
more probable, judging from his illustration of the object, that it was part 
of one of the large, perforated antler objects, like those described under 
“ Problematical Objects.’’ 
Shell. Shells were not so extensively used as material as at other 
Iroquoian sites in Ontario. No shell was used as tempering material in 
pottery; in fact shell tempering is rarely used at Iroquoian sites elsewhere 
in Ontario. Although many shells of the freshwater clam Elliptio 
complanatus were found, comparatively few have the edges worn from use. 
Others have holes broken through the sides, a few have the sides and umbo 
flattened either by rubbing or from use in some smoothing operation, and 
one was used as a receptacle for paint. The anterior end of a shell of 
Eurynia recta is worn from use as a scraper and a shell of Lampsilis 
siliquoidea has a large hole broken through the side. Two shells of 
Campeloma dccisum, a freshwater snail, were pierced for use as beads or 
pendants (Plate XV, figure 8). The use of marine shell was not extensive, 
only an unworked fragment of the shell of a quahog (Venus mercenaria ) , 
two worked pieces, one of them cut from the lip of a conch, and six beads 
made from the columella of conch shells (Plate XV, figures 9, 10), 
being found. 
Plant Materials 
The use of plant materials such as wood, bark, and fibres is suggested 
by some of the material found. 
Wood. Charcoal, some of which may have been used as material for 
paint, was abundant in the refuse. No doubt every kind of wood available 
was used for fuel. That the posts of the palisade and the framework of 
the houses, bows, the shafts of arrows, and handles for tools were made 
of wood can be inferred. Possibly clugout canoes were made by hollowing 
trunks of craes. Only two w r ooden artifacts were actually found at the site. 
One of them is the perforated disk in Plate XVII, figure 11, which was 
found in the muck surrounding the spring and preserved by being 
continuously wet, and the other is the small, buttonlike object illustrated 
in Plate XVIII, figure 4. A few pieces of wood show cuts made with an 
ax. The small wooden cup seen in text Figure 4 is said to have been 
found in a grave at the site. 
Bark. Part of what appears to have been a receptacle of birch bark 
(Plate XVIII, figure 3) was found near the perforated wooden disk in 
the spring, and a closely coiled carbonized roll of the same kind of bark 
as mentioned on page 91 may have been a torch. That bark w y as used for 
other purposes is suggested by the discovery of the carbonized fragment 
of a rope twisted from pieces of flat bark (Plate XVIII, figure 5). 
Fibres. There is evidence that vegetal fibres w T ere twisted into cords 
and woven into bags (Plate XVIII, figure 6), but it is not certain from 
what plants the fibres were derived, although they may either be hemp 1 
or the inner bark of the basswood. 
^alm (I, p. 412) says the Iroquois used fibres derived from the Indian hemp ( Apocynum cannabium). 
