18 
COMMERCE OF RUDE TRIBES. 
We may also be misled by our ignorance of tlie commer¬ 
cial relations existing between savage tribes. Extremely rude 
nations, in spite of their jealousies and their perpetual wars, 
sometimes contrive to exchange the products of provinces very 
widely separated from each other. The mounds of Ohio con¬ 
tain pearls, thought to be marine, which must have come from 
the Gulf of Mexico, or perhaps even from California, and the 
knives and pipes found in the same graves are often formed of 
far-fetched material, that was naturally paid for by some home 
product exported to the locality whence the material was 
derived. The art of preserving fish, flesh, and fowl by drying 
and smoking is widely diffused, and of great antiquity. The 
Indians of Long Island Sound are said to have carried on a 
trade in dried shell fish with tribes residing very far inland. 
Erom the earliest ages, the inhabitants of the Faroe and 
Orkney Islands, and of the opposite mainland coasts, have 
smoked wild fowl and other flesh. Hence it is possible that 
the animal and the vegetable food, the remains of which are 
found in the ancient deposits I am speaking of, may sometimes 
have been brought from climates remote from that where it 
was consumed. 
The most important, as well as the most trustworthy con- 
a fragment of quartz, with a simple piece of round hone, one end of which 
was hemispherical, with a small crease in it (as if worn by a thread) the 
sixteenth of an inch deep, an arrow head which was very sharp and pier¬ 
cing, and such as they use on all their arrows. The skill and rapidity with 
which it was made, without a blow, but by simply breaking the sharp 
edges with the creased bone by the strength of his hands—for the crease 
merely served to prevent the instrument from slipping, affording no lever¬ 
age—was remarkable .”—Reports of Explorations and Surveys for Pacific 
Railroad, vol. ii, 1855, Lieut. Beckwith’s Report , p. 43. 
It has been said that stone weapons are not found in Sicily, except in 
certain caves half filled with the skeletons of extinct animals. If they 
have not been found in that island in more easily accessible localities, I 
suspect it is because eyes familiar with such objects have not sought for 
them. In January, 1854, I picked up an arrow head of quartz in a little 
ravine or furrow just washed out by a heavy rain, in a field near the 
Simeto. It is rudely fashioned, but its artificial character and its special 
purpose are quite unequivocal. 
