JADE

In British Columbia the area abounding
in jade, as known to us from the amount
collected, is the valley of the Fraser and
its tributaries from Lytton northward for
about thirty miles. Its source is believed
to be in the bordering mountains, although
as yet it has not been found 7 sitw, and our
knowledge of it is confined to the water-
worn and sand-polished bowlders of moder-
ate size found along the shores of the rivers,
in the beds of the smaller mountain streams,
and throughout the placer-fields laid bare
by the mining operations of 1858.

From old village and camp sites and the
sand burial mounds, great numbers of
partly worked bowlders, cutting tools, and
finished implements have been unearthed,
and other pieces have been found in pos-
session of the older people, which have de-
scended to them from the past. Jade in
both the rough and the finished state
was the most valuable article of trade
possessed by the natives. Their country
was poor in animal and plant life, and sal-
mon, their staple food, while abundant

INDIAN NOTES