The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studiesWilson, Daniel, Sir
History
The lost Atlantis, and other ethnographic studies
Wilson, Daniel, Sir
America -- Antiquities; Atlantis (Legendary place); Ethnology -- America; Indians of North America -- Antiquities
The flint of the cretaceous deposits does not occur in America. True
chalk is all but unknown among the cretaceous strata of the continent,
although it has been found in the form of a somewhat extensive bed in
Western Kansas. In Texas, the cretaceous limestones contain in places
hornstone nodules distributed through them, like the flint nodules in
the upper chalk beds of Europe. But though, so far, differing in origin,
the hornstone and flint are practically identical; and the chert, or
hornstone, which abounds in the chert-layers of the corniferous
formation, of common occurrence in Canada, is simply a variety of flint,
consisting essentially, like the substance to which that name is
specifically applied, of amorphous silica, and with a similar cleavage.
This Devonian formation is made up chiefly of limestone strata, parted
in many places by layers of chert which vary in thickness from half an
inch to three or four inches. The limestones are more or less
bituminous, and frequently contain chert nodules. Most of their fossils
are silicified. The formation underlies a considerable portion of
South-western Ontario. Out-crops occur at Port Dover, Port Colborne,
Kincardine, Woodstock, St. Mary’s, and other localities. At a point
which I have explored more than once near Port Dover, implements occur
in considerable numbers, along with fractured or imperfect specimens,
mingled with flakes and chippings, evidently indicative of a spot where
their manufacture was carried on. At this, and some others of the
localities here named, Canadian flint pits may be looked for. Among
other objects illustrative of primitive native arts in the Museum of the
University of Toronto, is a block of flint or brown chert, from which
flakes have been struck off for the use of the native arrow-maker. This
flint core was found in a field on Paisley Block, in Guelph Township,
along with a large flake, a scraper, and fourteen arrow heads of various
sizes, all made from the same material. Alongside of them lay a flint
hammer-stone bearing marks of long use. All of those objects are now in
the University Museum, and appear to indicate the site of an aboriginal
workshop, with one of the tools of the ancient arrow-maker, who there
fashioned his implements and weapons, and traded with them to supply the
need of the old Huron or Petun Indians of Western Canada. The Spider
Islands in Lake Winnipeg, near its outlet, have been noted by Dr. Robert
Bell, as a favourite resort of the old workers in flint, where they
could trade the products of their industry with parties of Indians
passing in their canoes. “I have found,” he says, “a considerable number
of new flint implements, all of one pattern, in a grave near one of
those sites of an old factory”; the body of a man—presumably the old
arrow-maker,—had been buried there in a sitting posture, surrounded
with the latest products of his industrious skill.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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