The maker of arrow and javelin heads, for this was a distinct art, was superceded by the superior efficacy of fire arms; and his red descendant at this day, as well as the gleaner of antiquities, is alike at a loss to find, where the ancient artist in chert and hornstone procured his materials of so suitable a quality and fracture, and how he obtained the skill to chip and form them into such delicate and appropriate patterns. The small and slender axe of iron, with a steel edge, and pipe-head, at once took the place of the crescent-shaped stone tomahawk, which had alone been appropriated to war; while the larger half-axe, so called, supplanted the clumsy stone AGAKWUT before employed rather as a gouge to detach coal in the process of felling trees by fire, than an axe proper. By the application of the common lathe and turning chisel, those species of thick sea shells, which the natives had, with so much labor, converted into seawan and wampum, were manufactured with such superior skill, expedition and cheapness, (although this is an article which the trader always held comparatively high) that the old Indian art of the _wampum-maker_, sunk, like that of the _arrow-maker_, never to be revived. But of all the exchanges made between civilized and savage life, the gift of the steel-trap, in replacing the Indian trap of wood, was the most eagerly sought, and highly prized by the hunter, although it hastened the period of the destruction of the whole class of furred animals, and thus in effect, brought to a speedy close the Indian dominion. Pottery was an art known universally among all the tribes from Patagonia to the Arctic ocean, but was practised with very different degrees of skill. The northern tribes who bordered on the great lakes, and thence reached down to the Atlantic, made a rude article, which just answered the simple purposes of the culinary art. The clay, or argillaceous material used for it, was such as is common to diluvial and tertiary soils. It was tempered with silex, in the form of pounded quartz, or often quartz and field-spar, as it exists in granite, in quite coarse particles. This mixture prevented shrinkage and cracks in drying, and enabled the mass to withstand the application of heat—an art which has resulted, and would very soon result, in any given case, from experience. There were no legs to the Indian _akeek_, or pot. It was designed to be used, to use a chemical phrase, as a sand-bath. Being set on the ashes, a fire was built around it. It might also admit of suspension, by a bark cord tied below the lip, which flared out well, and thus could be attached to the ordinary Indian cooking-tackle, namely; a long-legged tripod, tied at the top with bark.