Among the tribes lying immediately to the south, the Tawatin Indians of British Columbia specially excel in ivory carving. Their personal ornaments are lavishly decorated; and many of their carvings resemble in so far the mammoth portraiture of the Madelaine artist, that they are simply efforts of skill, having no other end in view than the pleasure derived from their execution. It will be seen, however, in the conventional representation of the whale, as shown in Fig. 44, how far they fall short of the ancient workers in ivory in literal truthfulness of delineation. In one respect indeed this piece of Tawatin carving recalls a characteristic of early Christian art. Trifling as the correspondence is, it is curious thus to find the modern Indian carver of the Pacific coast giving to the monster of the deep the same barbed tongue which forms the conventional attribute of the dragons and leviathans of medieval Europe. But it is greatly more interesting to note, not only the thoroughly native style of art of their more elaborate carvings; but to recognise in many of them certain traits which recall characteristics of the finished sculptures on the ruins of Central America and Yucatan. This is strikingly shown in another of their carvings, Fig. 45, where some of the points of resemblance help to confirm other traces, hereafter indicated on different grounds, of early intercourse, if not of a common relationship, between savage tribes of the North-West, and ancient civilised nations of Central America and the Mexican plateau. [Illustration: FIG. 45.—Tawatin Ivory carving.] In times still prehistoric, though apparently recent in comparison with the mammoth or reindeer period of France, the works of the ancient Lake-dwellers of Switzerland furnish illustrations of the application of horn, bone, and ivory to many useful purposes for which the metals are now considered as alone suitable. The site of the pfahlbauten at Concise, on Lake Neuchâtel, has been peculiarly rich in the illustrations it has yielded of implements in flint, stone, bone, horn, and also in bronze. The skulls, horns, and bones, both of domesticated animals, and of those procured in the chase, are also abundant; and among the latter, the red deer and the wild boar appear to have predominated as articles of food.