result; the seat of the flake is more conchoidal, shorter and deeper depressed, whereas the direct percussive pressure throws off the shape of flake that we find has been done in making these spades. If this mode has been resorted to, it necessarily required considerable ingenuity in devices for holding the stone slab firmly, while the pressure was being applied in the right direction. The wooden clamp described by Catlin may have been used. The simplest device that occurs to me that will answer the purpose is a block of wood planted in the ground, with its end grain up, cut on top into steps, as represented in sketch, Fig. 6, the

lower step having grooves parallel with the rise of the upper step; in one of these grooves the edge of the implement is placed, its back resting against the edge of the higher step, as represented by the dotted lines showing the form of a spade. When in this position, presenting the proper angle to the operator, a man holds it firmly while another applies the pressure. A lower step, e, with the back edge of top are hollowed out to receive the work, while its lower end rests in an indentation in the lower step. In this manner a spade can be firmly held while its cutting end is being flaked. I do not present this as a mode that was practiced, but as a device that answers the purpose, and I judge to be within the capacity of the ancient flint-workers, of whom there is nothing left but their chips and finished work.

Let any one experiment with a bone point in chipping flint; he will soon discover the value of a dry bone, a bone free from grease that will hold to its work without slipping, a bone with sufficient hardness to resist abrasion, a bone of strength to bear the pressure, and he will value such a pointed bone, and will understand why, with such a bone, John Smith's ancient arrow-point maker "valued his above price, and would not part with it." I have been informed that the modern Indians free their flaking bones from grease by burying them in moistened clay and wood ashes, not unlike the common practice of our housewives to remove grease spots from their kitchen floors.

The hunter or trapper described to me a mode still in practice among the remote Indians of making flakes by lever pressure combined withpercussion, that is more philosophical and a better mechanical arrange

ment than by the use of a flaking-staff, as described by Catlin. Figure 7 shows the manner of utilizing a standing tree with spreading roots

FIG. 7.

for this purpose; a flattened root makes a firm seat for the stone, a notch cut into the body of a tree the fulcrum for the lever; either a pointed stick is placed on the point of the stone where the flake is to be split from it, its upper end resting against the under side of the lever, or a bone or horn point let into and secured to the lever takes the place of this stick. When the pressure is brought to bear, by the weight of the operation, on the long end of the lever, a second man with a stone, mall, or heavy club strikes a blow on the upper side of the lever, directly over the pointed stick or horn-point, and the flake is thrown off.

Lubbock, in "Prehistoric Times," illustrated the Eskimo scraper as used at the present time in preparing skins. When we consider the close proximity of the flint workshop to the great salt licks on the Saline River, the flowing salt springs, the deeply worn buffalo paths still to be seen after having been subject to the destructive work of cultivation by the plow for more than a generation, where skins by the thousands must have been dressed, it is not surprising that the many chert flakes that have been split off with too great a curvature of their flat side in their length to admit of being chipped into arrow-points should have been utilized for scrapers, many of which are the exact fac simile of what Lubbock has illustrated as the Eskimo and others of the European type, of which he says:

"It is curious, that while these spoon-shaped scrapers are so common in Europe, they are very rare, if indeed they occur at all, in North Am erica south of the Eskimo region."

I think it most probable from their close resemblance to refuse flakes and chips they were overlooked by early collectors. In the great game districts of the West, both in flint workshops and among the waste of Indian settlements, they are much more abundant than arrow-heads, or any other implements, with the exception of the small flint knives.

It is also in these game districts that what is known as the "beveledge arrow-points" are found, that have been a subject of much discussion as to their use. Foster says of the one he has illustrated: "The specimen represented is from Professor Cox's collection, and the two edges are symmetrically beveled, as if to give it a rotary motion." I have met many others that accept this idea, unmindful of the fact that a ship is not steered at its stem, but by the rudder, at its stern, and an arrow is not directed or held to its course by its point, but by the feather at the butt end of its shaft; and if a rotary motion was required it would naturally be given by placing the feathers spirally around the shaft. The broat flat sides of these beveled points would neutralize any effect from the short bevels in passing through the air.

I have heard it urged that they were reamers, and that the uniform bevel being in one direction, to cut as reamers they would have to be turned to the left, or, as our workmen say, "against the sun." From this it has been argued that the people who used them belonged to a left-handed race. The direction and uniformity in the bevels is to me evidence of exactly the reverse. Among all the points we find they are the simplest and easiest to form by chipping when laid on their flat. Nothing but the down pressure of flaker is required to separate a chip from a flat at a 45-degree angle. Suppose a flake that had been roughly shaped held flat on a block of wood by the fingers of the left hand, the tool in the right hand chipping from the point to the broad end by direct down pressure; then by turning the flake over and working the other edge in the same manner, we have in a center cross-section a form resembling a long-stretched rhomboid with sharp cutting serrated edges at the acute angles.

Colonel Long said that 2 inches was the greatest length of stone arrow-heads that he found in use among the Indians; that all longer

not used for javelin and spear-heads were strongly hafted and used as cutting implements. This was confirmed by Catlin. It is more where and under what circumstances we find a stone tool than the tool itself

that teaches its probable use. In the case of the bevel-edged points, all I have found have been among waste where the users have lived, done their cooking and skin-dressing; and these were always associated with broken bones, muscle shells, fragments of pottery, flint knives, scrapers, &c., never scattered as if lost in hunting, as we find arrow-heads. One peculiarity of the bevel point is its strong, massive shank to secure it to a shaft or handle. This is shown in Figs. 8 and 9, with their cross-sec

tions on the dotted lines; they are both of very dark, hard chert. Fig. 10 is from Bath County, Kentucky, near the Upper Blue Lick; it is of beautifully striped jasper; two sections are given to show the great thickness to give strength to the cutting-edges Fig. 11, yellow jasper; the want of symmetry in form is most probably the result of sharpening by fresh flaking. Fig. 12, a beautiful specimen of workmanship, showing a differ

ent mode of attachment to a handle. All the above are drawn full size. In a small cache of leaf-shaped implements were found six of the beveledged points, all broken off at the shank in precisely the same manner,pretty conclusive evidence of hard service, and probably brought to the workshop to have new shanks formed and to be re-hafted.

The only effort at drilling or piercing that I have found among the rubbish is a piece of yellow fluorspar 2 inches long, roughly rounded to 14 inches diameter; in one end a hole one-fourth inch in diameter has been drilled three-fourths inch deep; at the other end, a hole one-eighth inch diameter and only one-fourth inch deep. Many pierced implements have been found at or near dwelling sites associated with this flint man. ufactory, such as banner stones split through the drilled eye; some split fragments of tubes of great length, made out of hard schistose slate.

Among the waste are pieces of specular iron ore from Missouri, in evidence that it was worked here, probably into axes and weights or plumbbobs. There is also evidence that argillaceous iron ore, the clay iron stone or carbonates of the coal measures, was a material extensively used. From the various forms of much oxidized pieces that I have found that will not bear handling, they appear to have been cutting or carving tools, probably used in the manufactories; though axes and celts made 'from this material are occasionally found in the vicinity of the salt licks, always deeply oxidized, peeling off in flakes that conform to the original form of the implement.

Many scooped or hollowed out blocks of sandstone or large flattish river bowlders, mostly sunk on both sides, that are classed as mortars for crushing corn, and with them crushing stones and pestles, have been plowed up on this flaking ground, but they are much more abundant on the dwelling portion of the ridge; also river pebbles partly pecked to an edge for celts, some of them roughly grooved for axes; but what surprised me most was the great number of what have been called cup-stones, by some nut-stones. These are frequently found scattered over Southern Illinois and Western Kentucky, and occasionally on all the tributaries of the Mississippi. But here they are found in mass. When the ground was first put under cultivation none were seen, and it was not until the great denuding floods had passed over it that they were exposed. On finding, just above the surface of the ground, the face of a fine specimen that showed a number of cups, I loosened and turned it over to examine the cups on the under side, and found it was lying on top of another. With pick and spade I soon exposed a group or pile of over twenty, and with them a number of slabs of the same sandstone that showed marks of having been used as rub or grindstones, all from the millstone-grit series from the bluffs on the opposite side of the Saline. Further research developed a number of such piles, some only having the cup-like indentations, as illustrated at page 40 of No. 287 of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge; others having a center depression of from 4 to 6 inches in diameter, similar to the rude mortars 'with the cups irregularly arranged around them. Subsequent overflows exposed many scattered over the entire flaking ground; they varied in size from large pebbles with a single cup on opposite sides, known to the early settlers as having been used by the Indians as nutstones, up to massive slabs, having from two up to eight and ten cups