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314 ON FLINT ARROW HEADS OF DELICATE STRUCTURE.

horrible and often incurable wound. Now as the North American Indians have devised this method of torturing an enemy, is it not very possible that the same device may have occurred to the pre-historic savages in Belgium, and that those fine and delicate flint arrow-heads were meant to break and splinter in the wound that they had made.

I may add what perhaps will surprise the reader, that in Bison hunting the bow and arrow is a far more effective implement than rifle or pistol; but he must remember that the chase is generally followed at full gallop, and a Bison unless struck on the spine or in the heart, will run for miles with several balls in him; but when struck by an arrow eight or ten inches deep in his body, every movement that he makes gives him so much pain that he stands still, bleeding inwardly, and the Indian returns and kills him at leisure.

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APPENDIX B.

ANCIENT HUMAN FOOTPRINTS IN NICARAGUA.

Ar a meeting of this Institute (see page 146,) reference was made to some ancient human footprints in Nicaragua, and an early copy of Dr. D. G. Brinton's investigations in regard thereto (as laid before the American Philosophical Society) was read. Since then, the discoverer, Mr. Earl Flint, demurring to the conclusions of Dr. D. G. Brinton, has sent the Victoria Institute a statement of his objections, as they appear in the American Antiquarian for 1888. The following is a reprint of the first three paragraphs, which specially bear upon the point at issue:

"As adverse sentence has been pronounced before the American Philosophical Society, by my friend Dr. D. G. Brinton, on the antiquity of footprints found in a quarry near Lake Managua, and other locations, which was due to a misunderstanding of my letter, leading him to associate surviving eocene shells from another locality and eocene sand, on which the Tufas containing the footprints lie, permit me to reply."

"An imprint was sent him, and one to Prof. Baird, and the sand on which they lay was sent separate to both parties; the bag of shells contained a slip, stating, 'shells from Lake Giloa, or Jiloa, whose entire beach is made up of them,' which is six miles northeast of quarry, and considered as belonging to same horizon. This collateral evidence would aid in placing the geological age of the Tufas; as the shells were a new species, and with many others abundant near the old caves, on the southwest slope of the volcanic range, were covered with similar types spread over our northern Territories.'

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"Of those here, not four per cent. are existing species. The 'scarphaca' is not represented among living forms. The same remark applies to many others included in those sent to the National Museum in 1878, private Nos. 187 to 289, still undetermined, but older than those found in the shell heaps' along the coast range, which was repeopled long after; even these contain old'

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316 ON ANCIENT HUMAN FOOTPRINTS IN NICARAGUA.

shells, among them the 'calistar,' are abundant, and though not passing beyond the cretaceous formation, are common among those found in the Territories, while those found near the caves are much older and pertain to the eocene-tertiary merging into the miocene; there is no doubt that the cave dwellers used them as food, at the same time made the inscriptions of the sea monsters with uncommon accuracy, and some in relief. I was unable to copy one correctly without the aid of instruments, while their authors lying face upwards chiseled them in rock."

“In conclusion, for the fifth time, I try to make myself understood when I say that man's works were buried here in eocene times ; that the first volcanic eruption containing the footprints lies on sand and other formations of that epoch, while his works are in close proximity with eocene shell beds and were buried together.”

Since the record of its Meeting of November, 1887, the transactions of the American Philosophical Society have contained no further allusion to the subject; the American Antiquarian for March, 1889, however, inserts the following remarks upon the "Age of the Nicaragua Footprints":

"The subject of the Nicaragua footprints has been discussed during the past year. Dr. Earl Flint was the first' discoverer. He maintains that the footprints belonged to the eocene strata. Dr. D. G. Brinton, on the contrary, taking by Dr. Earl Flint's own testimony, makes out that they did not belong to the eocene, but were of a much more recent date. He submitted the shells which were found in the yellow sand to Prof. Angello Heilprin for examination. He thinks that the deposit is more nearly post-pliocene than eocene. The leaves which were discovered in the new look of the shells, are cited as proofs of volcanic forces, which at a modern date covered the human tracks. Another proof more conclusive to Dr. Brinton's mind is that the footprints indicate the use of sandals or moccasins. As to the genuineness of the footprints the wood-cut* kindly furnished to us by Dr. Brinton will illustrate the point. Several specimens have been sent to the United States. Four of them are in the Peabody Museum. One of these has an appearance as

* Victoria Institute Transactions, p. 146, an1e.

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if a sandal had been used; the others are impressions of the bare foot. The specimen sent to Dr. Brinton contains the impression of a left foot. The apparent length of the foot was eight inches, though the total length of the impression was nine and a quarter inches, the breadth at the heel three inches, toes four and a half inches. The greatest depth of the impression is two inches, being at the ball of the foot, the weight having evidently been thrown forward as in vigorous walking. The place at which these footprints were discovered is in Nicaragua, a region which is subject to earthquakes and where volcanic eruptions were formerly numerous. Some of them were on the slope of the Sierra de Managua, near the town of San Rafael. The present specimen was taken from a quarry near the town of Managua, 300 feet from Lake Managua.

"The volcano Tizcapa is about two and a half miles from the shore of this lake, and in ancient times its molten streams found their way into the waters of the lake. Its eruptions were irregular and evidently long periods of quiescence intervened, periods long enough for the tufa beds to become covered with vegetation. The impressions are found on the first or lowest tufa beds." Dr. Flint says that the rock-bound shores of this and other lakes are covered with inscriptions of which no tradition can be obtained. Seven well-marked beds of tufa are penetrated; next a deposit of clay, the soil of other times, containing plants, trees, leaves, then four-more deposits, including pumice, sand-drift, tufa black sand, volcanic sand, fossil leaves, etc., and then come the footprints.

One point of inquiry would be as to the certainty of Dr. Flint's divisions of the strata. On this there is great opportunity for imagination to work, and it will require very close observation on the part of skilled geologists and naturalists to decide upon the number of deposits and the age of each. The subject is at arm's length at present. Dr. Flint is the only observer on the spot, but the professors in the university at Harvard, Philadelphia, and the gentlemen in the National Museum at Washington have only the few stone slabs which have been forwarded to them to judge from. An argument for exceeding antiquity has been made from the relative length of the big toe and the second toe, but the specimen sent to Dr. Brinton gives no such impression; it is quite a modernlooking foot. There is no doubt of these being genuine human footprints; but the use of sandals would certainly contradict the idea of very great age. A race which wears shoes can not be assigned to the early stages of human culture."

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APPENDIX C.

CAVE DEPOSITS.

AT a recent meeting of the Institute, the statement was made that the bones of animals found in caves were (C washed in or carried there by beasts of prey," and a member (Mr. J. Stalkartt) remarked at the time that their presence in caves was not usually due to being carried in by beasts of prey. Since then, Mr. Stalkartt, writing from India, gives instances. in which bears had come down from the hills to his estate and killed and eaten cattle upon the spot; and in doing so he refers to the following notes of a paper read in 1888, before the Bombay Natural History Society.

Mr. Inverarity, a noted shikari discussed the habits of the tiger, and especially the mode in which it kills and eats its prey. Some have thought that the tiger seizes by the throat, others by the nape of the neck from above. Mr. Inverarity has examined scores of slain animals with special reference to this point, and in every case but one the throat was seized from below. The exception was an old boar, who had been seized by the back of the neck from above. One of a single file of villagers who was once seized by the nape of the neck by a man-eater, but saved by his companions, and had no idea when he recovered his senses what had happened. Whether dislocation of the neck takes place is doubtful. The tame hunting leopards always kill by pressure on the windpipe, without breaking the skin; possibly the tiger kills in the same way. It

is only by accident, if at all, that tigers in killing sever any important vein or artery, and no blood to speak of flows from the throat wounds. Very large and powerful animals like the bull, buffalo, and bison, if attacked at all, are in the first instance attacked from the rear with a view to disabling them. Having killed, the tiger almost invariably begins eating a hind-quarter, consuming one or probably both. Sometimes he leaves the stomach and intestines as they are; sometimes he will remove them to one side, making a neat parcel of them. A tiger and tigress together will finish an ordinary sized animal at one meal, leaving only the head. In this case it is probable that the second

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