Notice of a peculiar weapon or harpoon of bronze found on the bank of the River Tweed, near Norham / by John Alexander Smith.

Date:: [1870?]

Credit: Notice of a peculiar weapon or harpoon of bronze found on the bank of the River Tweed, near Norham / by John Alexander Smith. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

3/14 page 295

$also iu use on the coasts of ^^orth-Western America, and, in an interesting little volume, giving an account of the natives of that part of the world, en- titled Scenes and Studies of Savage Life, by Gilbert Malcolm Sproat, London, 1868, I find details given of the manner of catching salmon by the natives of the west coast of Vai-acouver Island. They capture the fish with the hook, and with elaborately constructed traps in the rivers, and also with the spear; either from the canoes by torch-light at night in the deeper Avater ofi the mouths of rivers, or by standing in the river during the day, and striking the fish as they swim past, or lie in the deep pools of the river. The salmon spears have a Salmon Spears used by the Natives of tlie West Coast of Vancouver Island. (The two headed spear is about 15 feet in length ; the one lieaded spear is con- siderably shorter.) movable barbed head, to which a line is always attached. They employ a spear Avith a single head in the shallow water; but in deeper water, where the chances of the fish escaping are greater, from the refraction of the water, they use a very ingenious spear, which has a double or additional head springing from the upper part of the sliaft, each head with its separate line attached ; and so the chances of striking tlie fisli are much increased. Mr Sproat says— The salmon spears are made of pine, and are rounded and smoothctl by Ijeing rubbed on watered stones, and are afterwards :?traightened by warmth in the ashes of the fires. The spear, with two lieads and two fingor places in the liaudlo, is al)out 1.5 feet long, and is$

Notice of a peculiar weapon or harpoon of bronze found on the bank of the River Tweed, near Norham / by John Alexander Smith.

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