the real sense. They knew nothing of the use of the
metals. Such poor weapons and tools as they had were made
of stone, of wood, and of bone. It is true that ages ago
prehistoric men had dug out copper from the mines that
lie beside Lake Superior, for the traces of their operations
there are still found. But the art of working metals
probably progressed but a little way and then was
lost,--overwhelmed perhaps in some ancient savage conquest.
The Indians found by Cartier and Champlain knew nothing
of the melting of metals for the manufacture of tools.
Nor had they anything but the most elementary form of
agriculture. They planted corn in the openings of the
forest, but they did not fell trees to make a clearing
or plough the ground. The harvest provided by nature and
the products of the chase were their sole sources of
supply, and in their search for this food so casually
offered they moved to and fro in the depths of the forest
or roved endlessly upon the plains. One great advance,
and only one, they had been led to make. The waterways
of North America are nature's highway through the forest.
The bark canoe in which the Indians floated over the
surface of the Canadian lakes and rivers is a marvel of
construction and wonderfully adapted to its purpose: This
was their great invention. In nearly all other respects
the Indians of Canada had not emerged even from savagery
to that stage half way to civilization which is called
barbarism.

These Canadian aborigines seem to have been few in number.
It is probable that, when the continent was discovered,