weapon is now used in the Mackenzie region it was introduced from the west, as it was used by the Point Barrow natives as early as 1837. (See Thomas Simpson's "Narrative," p. 156.)

The "bolas" was first described by Captain Beechey, who saw it in Kotzebue Sound in 1826 ("Voyage," &c., p. 574). The extensive collections of Mr. E. W. Nelson, now in the National Museum, show that the bolas is or has been very generally used along the entire Alaskan coast, from Point Barrow at least as far as the delta of the Yukon, and on St. Lawrence Island, while we have the testimony of several travellers as to its use on the coast of Siberia.*

Thus what we know of its geographical distribution corresponds very closely with that of the pipe and the net, and it is therefore natural to suppose that it is, like them, of Siberian origin. On the other hand, we have no proof that exactly the reverse is not the case, namely, that the bolas was invented by the American Eskimos at some point not east of Point Barrow and thence introduced into Siberia. There is no linguistic evidence in favor of either view. The bolas is called in Alaska kilauwitautin, which is evidently an Eskimo word and apparently a derivative of the stem-word kilavok, "it moves rapidly," while in Siberia the name is aplûkität—to all appearances a genuine Chukche word.

It is at all events quite certain that the bolas was unknown to the original Eskimos, or else we should find some traces of it in the eastern regions, where there is nothing in the environment to cause the disuse of so effective a means of procuring food.

1. In reply to Major Powell, Mr. Murdoch said that tobacco was used by the Eskimos exactly as by the whites, purely as a luxury, and never, as far as he could learn, as a ceremonial observance. He found in this fact another argument in favor of the opinion that the use of tobacco among the western Eskimos was not of American origin.

2. In reply to Mr. Dall, Mr. Murdoch reminded him that Cape Bathurst, which he had found to be the eastern limit of the little

*Nordenskiöld, "Voyage of the Vega," vol. 2, p. 109, and fig. 3, p. 105; the Krause Brothers, "Deutsche Geographische Blätter," b. 5, heft 1, p. 32; and Rosse, "Cruise of the Corwin, 1881," p. 34. There is also a specimen from Pitlekaj in the National Museum, from Nordenskiöld's collection.

He

Siberian pipe, was considerably east of the Mackenzie river. repeated his opinion, that at this point there was a sharp dividing line between the eastern and western Eskimos, forming a sort of "Wallace's line," at which many inventions and customs stop short.

3. Remarks of Professor Mason on Eskimo handicraft led Mr. Murdoch to call the attention of the Society to the clever workmanship shown in these Eskimo pipes. He mentioned several instances of the skill of the people of Point Barrow in working metals with very crude appliances, especially one case which came under his own observation, where a cracked musket-barrel was made perfectly serviceable by shrinking onto it a section of a gun-barrel just too small to slip over it when cold. He said, however, that one of these days somebody would collect elaborate pipes at Point Barrow for Eskimo workmanship which were really made by two skillful workmen of Ray's party with the help of a turning-lathe. In reply to a question by Major Powell, he said that there was no reason to believe that the pipes collected by Ray's party were made by any one but the Eskimos themselves.

4. Colonel Flint having raised the question as to whether tobacco was used at Point Barrow otherwise than for smoking, Mr. Murdoch stated that chewing tobacco was an almost universal habit at Point Barrow, among men, women, and children-even nursing children being seen to chew. Large pieces of tobacco, when it could be procured, were chewed, a quid being sometimes as large as a man's thumb. The kuinya pipe was used only by adults; the children might smoke anything else they could get. Snuff was not used at Point Barrow, but very generally by the natives further south.

NOTE ON THE TURTLE-BACK CELT.

BY S. V. PROUDFIT.

BENNINGS.-The Anacostia, sometimes called the "Eastern Branch," skirting the city of Washington on the east and southeast, widens into a considerable bay as it enters the Potomac. The valley on the eastern side of the Anacostia is for several miles above the mouth of the stream comparatively level, and but a few feet above high-water mark. The soil is sandy and has been under cultivation for many years. Here was located an Indian village mentioned by Captain John Smith in his description of the Patawomeke: “And lastly Nacotchtanke, with eighty able men. The river ten miles above this place maketh his passage down a low, pleasant valley," &c. (Smith's map of Virginia). Though all portions of the valley described give abundant proof of long-continued occupation, the principal part of the village must have been almost due east of where the Capitol now stands. This conclusion rests on the greater number of relics found at the point indicated and now known as Bennings. The existence of this old campingground has been well known and the place visited regularly for years, but the supply of relics seems inexhaustible, furnishing stone implements of every grade known to the Indians of the Potomac, from the rude "turtle-back" of quartzite or argillite to the most delicately finished arrow-heads.

ANALOSTAN. On the Virginia shore of the Potomac, opposite the foot of Analostan Island and between the old canal and river, is a narrow ridge of land rising above the river perhaps twenty feet or more and nearly parallel with its course. Here within an area of two acres and at the extreme upper end of the ridge has been found every form of stone implement common to Indian use or manufacture. Axes, scrapers, knives, perforators, and arrow-heads-the last in the same countless profusion as at Bennings.

CHAIN BRIDGE.-At the foot of the Little Falls, where the "Chain Bridge" spans the Potomac, about three miles above Georgetown, the Maryland heights, rising above the river perhaps two hundred feet, form a comparatively level plateau, back of which the hills rise again in broken lines. On this table-land was another

village site, where the evidences of aboriginal occupation are not less than those noted at Bennings and Analostan. On the opposite shore the hills are broken and abrupt, without the crowning plateau, but many of them are littered with the debris of ancient camplife.

PINEY BRANCH.-This is a small stream entering Rock creek northwest of the city and just beyond the village of Mount Pleasant as you leave it on the Fourteenth-street road. From the point where the stream is crossed by this road to its union with Rock creek it passes through a deep ravine, heavily wooded, rocky in some places, and in others made up of steep, gravelly hills that descend abruptly to the bed of the stream. On these hillsides and in the creek bed may be found thousands of rudely worked stone implements of quartzite belonging to the order of "turtle-backs" or "paleoliths," many of them well formed, others so rudely as to require the eye of an expert to select them from the gravel, and mingled with them all thousands of pebbles showing chipped faces. Here and there may be found smaller implements common to the Indian village sites in the District, but for the most part the implements are of the order first named.

An immense workshop, covering acres, and full of suggestion as to the antiquity of the workmen.

This place is pre-eminently the home of the turtle-back.

Other forms of worked stone appear, it is true, but in no considerable amount when compared with the immense number of the former. This fact, however, is to be noticed, that while the paleolithic form is more abundant at this point than on the village sites already discussed, there is absolutely no difference to be discovered between the turtle-back from Bennings and that from Piney Branch. A series collected from one place and confined to quartzite may be easily substituted one for the other and such substitution escape detection under the most rigid inspection. How, then, can it be said that the one place carries any greater evidence as to the antiquity of man than the other.

But what was going on at Piney Branch when these turtle-backs were made by the thousands and left where finished? Primitive man no more than the modern can be presumed to have worked for the mere work's sake, as it would seem that he had done here. If it is conceded that the turtle-back is a complete implement, fashioned for a distinct purpose, and that purpose worked into the desired

form, we then have the problem of furnishing a reason sufficient to warrant reasonable beings in methodically manufacturing weapons or tools, and then as methodically throwing them away, only to make others precisely like them.

ANALOSTAN, BENNINGS, AND CHAIN BRIDGE.-With respect to the general character of the relics found at these places, there are no such marked differences as to merit especial attention, the range of material varying but slightly with locality and the variance in form being scarcely perceptible. With these differences it is not the purpose of this paper to deal.

Bringing together such evidences of primitive occupation as may be gathered from these fields, it will be observed that the material employed included quartz, quartzite, argillite, "ironstone" (ferruginous sandstone), with here and there a stray bit of work in chert, chalcedony, and jasper; and that from this material were made axes, knives, scrapers, drills, arrow-heads, and other implements common to ancient domestic life. Each of these objects, however, whether tool or weapon, by its form suggests the purpose for which it was made, and furnishes frequently irrefragable testimony of having served that purpose. But in company with these, and made of quartzite, quartz, and argillite, may be found that mysterious nondescript, the " turtle-back," whose form suggests neither use nor purpose. Bearing no signs of any greater antiquity than the arrow-head, by the side of which it is found, showing no indications of ever having been used, but identical in form with the "paleoliths" from the valleys of the Somme and Delaware, they are found in such considerable numbers and so intimately associated with implements of undoubted Indian origin as to almost force the conclusion that both were the handiwork of the same people.

At the Cleveland meeting of the American Association, August 21, the subject of the paleolithic implements found on the surface in various parts of the United States was discussed. Mr. Thomas Wilson, Curator of the Department of Prehistoric Archeology in the Smithsonian Institution, made a report of over three thousand specimens of this class which had been reported to him in response to a circular sent out some months ago. A lively discussion took place on the holding over of old forms into later epochs and the danger of studying American archeology by European methods and standards.