238 Field Columbian Museum — Anthropology, Vol. II. 



Guernsey. Nothing could exceed the kindness and generosity of 

 Mr. Lauk and of his partner, Mr. Stein. Their ranch is in a most 

 picturesque spot of Whalen Canon, and at a short distance from the 

 house are innumerable stone tipi circles, while the ground is strewn 

 with fragments of flint of many kinds, of which I shall speak more 

 fully later on. 



Equipped with food and bedding, we left the ranch early one 

 morning with Mr. Lauk for guide, and by driving north and slightly 

 west for about thirty miles we came in the afternoon to the quarry, 

 where we spent the night, returning to the ranch late the next day. 

 Naturally, in such a short time it was impossible to make a thorough 

 examination of the quarry, but the main features were noted and a 

 large amount of material was collected, so that it is possible to give 

 a fairly accurate account of the conditions under which flint was 

 mined by the aborigines before the advent of the white race. 



QUARRYING OPERATIONS BY MEANS OF EXCAVATIONS. 



The quarry is located on a lofty rounded eminence which, how- 

 ever, attains its height by a very gradual ascent. From the summit 

 one looks off in almost every direction over a vast expanse of treeless 

 sagebrush plain, with no living thing in view except an occasional 

 sage-hen or antelope. Here and there over the surface of the emi- 

 nence are many pits with a diameter of twenty to fifty feet, and of a 

 depth of from ten to thirty feet. The walls and bottoms of these pits 

 are, of course, covered with flint refuse, which is almost entirely 

 unworked. In the more open spaces between the pits, and especi- 

 ally on the south slope of the eminence, are many stone tipi circles, 

 in one group alone over twenty being noted, some of them so perfect 

 that it seems as though the tipis had been removed but the day before. 



NATURE OF OCCURRENCE AND CHARACTER OF MATERIAL 



QUARRIED. 



On the east side of the eminence the grade is rather more 

 abrupt than on the other sides,' and near the base of the hill we 

 encounter a deep ravine or wash with vertical walls, thus giving a 

 fine exposure of the character of "rock sought after higher up. Exam- 

 ining one of the walls of the wash (see PI. XXVIII) we find a solid 

 stratum, thirty or more feet thick, of flint, or rather of sandstone, 



