5 9 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



shape a pebble that it might better meet the needs of a club-head 

 or hatchet called for little skill, and the labor of making an axe 

 has recently been shown to be but slight ; but the idea of sym- 

 metry was developed and cultivated until a weapon was finally 

 produced that can not be improved upon. The same is true of 

 chipping from flint points for arrow-shafts. A mere splinter of 

 stone, if sharp and narrow, would be as effective as any shape 

 that could be devised ; but such chance splinters do not appear to 

 have been used, except directly after the invention of the bow and 

 arrow; and, so far as is now discoverable, a series of artistically 

 designed patterns have been in use for hundreds of years. Fig. 

 1 represents four arrow-points such as are common everywhere in 

 the valley of the Delaware. The flint-worker who made these had 

 something more than mere utilitarianism in his constitution. A 

 love of the beautiful, of symmetry, of neatness, call it what you 

 will, was well developed. Not one of these would kill a bird or 

 beast one whit quicker than the simple triangular arrow-point ; 

 and yet these more elaborate forms are more abundant than those 

 of simpler outline. 



I am tempted to suggest that possibly the late (comparative- 

 ly speaking) use of jasper, here in the valley of the Delaware, 

 may have been generally adopted largely because of the bright 

 colors of that material. Of various tints, and often so veined 

 that even a small object might be partycolored, it is little wonder 

 that the use of jasper became so wide-spread, and argillite in a 

 measure neglected ; and yet the latter served every purpose, and 

 from the days of Palaeolithic man to the coming of the Dutch and 

 Swedes was never discarded. But argillite is dull gray when old, 

 and never bright or glossy, however newly chipped ; while the 

 jasper was red or yellow, green, blue, or variegated, and never lost 

 its brilliancy. Little wonder it was in such demand, and the 

 labor of mining undergone. Its color, doubtless, had much to do 

 with its adoption. 



Symmetry, as developed in fashioning the axe and celt, which 

 were pecked and not chipped, as were arrow-points, soon led to the 

 same methods being applied to stone for the production of more 

 elaborately designed objects, and the so-called "ceremonial" 

 forms were made. Fig. 2 represents a nearly faultless exam- 

 ple of these common " relics," the purpose of which can only 

 be conjectured. The Indian who shaped this specimen was no 

 " 'prentice-hand." He may not have been an artist in the common 

 acceptation of that term ; but he needed, to say the least, very 

 little instruction to make him one. Objects of this character are 

 of such remarkable abundance, although seldom of such beauty 

 of finish as is this, that the relic-hunter in his tramps over the 

 fields is continually wondering what they were intended for. I 



