The islanders of the Southern Ocean, the natives of many parts of the African continent, and the canoe-builders of the New World, all employ the agency of fire to supplement their imperfect tools. The stone axe of the St. Enoch’s croft canoe is formed of highly polished dark greenstone. It measures five and a half inches in length by three and a half in breadth; and an unpolished band round the centre indicates where it had been bound to its haft, leaving both ends disengaged, as is frequently the case with the stone hatchets of the American Indians and the Polynesians. But the accompanying woodcut (Fig. 51) drawn from one brought by Mr. Paul Kane from the Strait of De Fuca, shows a more ingenious mode of hafting the stone adze. Such implements are in use by the Clalam Indians for constructing out of the trunks of cedar trees, large and highly ornamented canoes, in which they fearlessly face the dangers of the Pacific Ocean. Some of their canoes, made out of a single tree, measure upwards of fifty feet long, and are capable of carrying thirty as a crew. They have thwarts from side to side, about three inches thick, and their gunwales curve outwards so as to throw off the waves. The bow and stern rise in a graceful sweep, sometimes to a height of five feet, and are decorated with grotesque figures of men and animals. The Indian crew kneel two and two along the bottom, and propel the canoe rapidly with paddles from four to five feet long, while a bowman and steersman sit, each with his paddle, at either end, and thus equipped these savages venture in their light bark upon the most tempestuous seas. One of their most coveted prizes is the whale, the blubber of which is eaten along with dried fish, and esteemed no less highly by them than by the Esquimaux. Since the encroachments of European settlements on their territories their game has greatly diminished, and few whales approach the coast; but, when an opportunity offers, the Indians are enthusiastic in the chase, and the process by which their prize is secured furnishes an interesting illustration of native ingenuity and daring. When a whale is seen blowing in the offing, they rush to their canoes and push off, furnished with a number of large sealskin bags filled with air, each attached by a cord to a barbed spear-head, in the socket of which is fitted a handle five or six feet long. Upon coming up with the whale, the barbed heads are driven into it, and the handles withdrawn; until the whale, no longer able to sink from the buoyancy of the air-bags, is despatched and towed ashore. By just such a process may the whale have been stranded at the base of Dunmyat, in times when an ancient ocean washed the foot of the Ochil hills, and the old Scottish whaler revelled in spoils such as now reward the enterprise of the savages of the North Pacific coast. [Illustration: FIG. 52.—Grangemouth Skull.]