3 20 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



well-designed a weapon as the argillite spear-head should not have 

 utilized stone in various other ways to meet their wants, precisely as 

 the Indian did subsequently. No other form of implement than these 

 spear-heads was clearly associated with them, except when found on 

 the surface, and so not clearly separable from the true Indian imple- 

 ments associated therewith. Recently, the occurrence of a stone ham- 

 mer, traces of fire charcoal and a flat stone bearing marks of a 

 hammer or rubbing-stone, at a depth of nearly three feet below the 

 surface, has rendered it quite probable that a proportion of the sur- 

 face-formed relics of these patterns should be regarded as of other 

 than Indian origin. If we examine a series of the stone implements 

 of the only other American race the Esquimaux we will find that 

 not only is the variation in pattern very considerable, but that pre- 

 cisely such forms of domestic implements as are now in use in the 

 Arctic regions, among the Chukches, are common " relics " in New 

 Jersey. In his recent volume of Arctic explorations, Professor Nor- 

 clenskiuld describes a series of stone hammers and a stone anvil, which 

 are used together for crushing bones.* Every considerable collection 

 of stone implements gathered along our sea-board, anywhere from 

 Maine to Maryland, contains numbers of identical objects. 



While many of these hammers and mortars are unquestionably of 

 Indian origin, no valid reason can be urged that a proportion of them 

 are not of the same origin as the argillite spear-heads. Indeed, grooved 

 stone hammers have been found quite deeply imbedded in the sand 

 as deep as the usual depth at which argillite arrow-points occur ; but 

 this, of itself, is scarcely significant. So unstable is the surface of the 

 earth, where sand prevails, that the actual position, when found, of 

 any single specimen, is of little importance. It is only when thousands 

 have been gathered with great care, and under the most favorable cir- 

 cumstances, that any inferences may be drawn. This is true of the 

 argillite arrow-heads, of which thousands have been gathered, and 

 presumably true of the hammers and mortars, because such implements 

 are common among an American race which uses also such spear-points 

 as are so abundant in New Jersey. The similarity between a Chukche 

 spear-point figured by Nordenskiold f and an Esquimau spear figured 

 by Lubbock J and the New Jersey specimens is very striking. Of 

 course, such similarity may be considered as mere coincidence, but that 

 it has an important bearing on the question becomes evident when the 

 many circumstances suggestive of a pre-Indian race on the Atlantic 

 sea-board are collectively considered. Singly, any fact may be held 

 to be of little or no value ; but when many of like significance are 

 gathered together, they are self-supporting, and the one central fact 

 becomes established. 



Basing the supposition that palaeolithic man was not the ancestor 



* "Voyage of the Yega," New York, 1882, p. 483. f Ibid., p. 571. 



% "Prehistoric Times," second edition, London, 1S68, p. 493, Fig. 21 S. 



