3 i6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



traces of prehistoric man, gathered along our northern Atlantic sea- 

 board, are of one origin. In other words, have traces of a people 

 later than American palaeolithic man, and earlier than the Indian, been 

 discovered ? 



When we chance upon a stone arrow-point lying in the soil, it is a 

 very different object to the archaeologist than the same specimen would 

 be lying in a cabinet. In the latter case, it is an example of man's primi- 

 tive handiwork merely ; in the former, it is not only the production of a 

 skilled worker in flint, but evidence that on the spot where found man 

 once tarried, if he did not dwell there, and tbat for him a necessity 

 for weapons existed. Further, if but a single specimen be found, we 

 may conclude that it is the point of some arrow vainly shot, or the 

 head of a lance that has been broken and lost. But if, on the other 

 hand, instead of one, we find a hundred scattered over a few square 

 rods of ground, then we have evidence not simply that arrow and 

 spear heads may be of various shapes and sizes, but that where they 

 occur was once a village, it may be, or a battle has been fought at 

 this point, or possibly that here an arrow-maker once plied his calling, 

 the more definite decision being reached whether we find pottery and 

 domestic implements also, or weapons only, or mingled with a multi- 

 tude of the flakes of such mineral as that of which the weapons are 

 made. Thus it will be seen that the practical results of an archaeolo- 

 gist's labors are to be derived from field-work only, not from simple 

 closet studies. He must seek out these hidden village sites, dig in 

 their weed-grown corn-fields, and invade their cemeteries, if he would 

 learn where they lived, where and how they toiled, and finally where 

 and in what manner they were laid to rest. 



Of a series of nearly twenty-five thousand implements and weapons 

 of stone gathered from one limited locality by the writer, more than 

 four fifths have been placed together in a public museum. In looking 

 at them collectively, perhaps the most noticeable feature is that of the 

 marked difference in finish and material. Of the chipped objects, such 

 as arrow-heads, one instinctively separates them into finely wrought 

 objects of jasper and quartz, and ruder specimens made of a slate-like 

 rock. 



The question is simply, Has this feature any ethnological signifi- 

 cance ? It is the purpose of this essay to determine this. 



The bare fact that one arrow-head is roughly fashioned and another 

 beautifully wrought has no significance beyond the fact that there 

 were skillful and clumsy workmen in every tribe professionals and 

 amateurs. On a closer examination a fact becomes apparent, however, 

 that should be critically regarded, and this is that the rudely made 

 objects are almost wholly made of the same mineral, while the finely 

 finished objects are of one of three closely allied minerals. The ex- 

 ceptions are too few to have any bearing on the question. Chipped 

 implements of Indian origin, such as occur in every nook and corner 



