THE EARLY MAN OF NORTH AMERICA. 585 



of their shape and size, were clearly pointed out by experience. And 

 there must have been a gain in the process to such an inventive tribe. 

 No more were long searches for properly-sized stones necessary. By 

 means of harder stones others were chipped and shaped, and so much 

 time was gained from looking for stones and devoted to obtaining 

 food. And tribes using artificially-shaped stones must have had a 

 superiority over those who relied on what natural stones they found 

 at the moment. They stood in less danger of starvation. In the 

 absence of other remains, the presence of roughly-fashioned stones 

 will be the earliest reliable trace we shall find of the existence of 

 men. In Europe such stones have been found and described by sev- 

 eral observers. In North America we owe their discovery to the zeal 

 of Dr. C. C. Abbott, aided in funds for excavation by the Peabody 

 Museum of Archaeology, of Cambridge, Massachusetts. The rough- 

 stone implements discovered by Dr. Abbott in New Jersey are chipped 

 so as to form an irregular cutting edge. They are flattened on the un- 

 der side and broken to an edge from the upper. The material itself 

 is basalt, a common kind of mixed rock of compact texture. As we 

 find them, the surface is slightly rusted, from the particles of iron in 

 the stone. This kind of rock is common, and the tunnel of the Erie 

 Railway at Jersey City is cut through stone of this kind. North 

 American rough-stone implements vary little in size and pattern, 

 although, when we examine all the kindred rough-stone implements 

 of the world yet known, we see that, as a class, they become grad- 

 ually more determinate in their shape and the chipping more regular ; 

 they come more into the shape of spear-heads, and, perhaps, large 

 arrow-points. Above the rough-stone implements we find those of 

 polished stone ; a departure showing that man was no longer satis- 

 fied with his first rude fashioning of his implements. Then we find 

 the metals ; and of these copper, being more pliable, is first beaten 

 cold and worked into shape for use. Then the process of smelting 

 and mixing with harder metals, such as iron, came to be employed; 

 and to-day we are doing just what man has always done, impi'oving 

 our tools so that we may better our condition. 



Surveying the whole field gone over by scientific men in recent 

 times, we must say that these different ages have merged gradually 

 into one another. The age of rough-stone implements or paleolithic, 

 the age of polished-stone implements, or neolithic, the ages of cop- 

 per, bronze, and iron, have succeeded each other without the possibil- 

 ity of our drawing the dividing line, any more than we can say exactly 

 when what we call the middle ages ceased and modern time came in. 



Certain implements are, indeed, rough stone, and others polished, 

 but between them are intermediate specimens, and both kinds seem 

 to have been sometimes in use at the same moment with the same 

 people. Again, the introduction of bits of copper in some of the 

 earlier graves precedes the fashioning of copper axes. It is a similar 



