346 Note on the Manufactiire of Stone Axes. 



an upright position. The processes exactly resembled (if we compare 

 new things with old) the two methods now in use for sinking deep 

 wells. By one, the whole shaft of stone, that occupied the place of 

 the future bore-hole, is pounded into dust by a heavy jumper, and 

 removed as mud by the help of w'ater. By the other the boring tool 

 only cuts round a core, Avhich is removed, afterwards, entire and lifted 

 out of the hole. 



Being lately at Princeton and looking over a large collection of 

 relics from the Swiss Lakes recently purchased and imported by Pro- 

 fessor Guyot, the fact mentioned above was strongly recalled to my 

 mind by seeing among them some small pieces of stone which exactly 

 resembled the cores that would be produced by boring out a stone, 

 tool or weapon in the manner just described. They were roughly 

 cylindrical, about half or three-quarters of an inch in diameter, and 

 nearly an inch long, marked with rings in such a manner as to irresis- 

 tibly call up the thought, that they were the cores left in boring round 

 holes through pieces of stone. In trying to fit them into the stone 

 axe-heads, with the aid of the curator, I was, as might be expected, 

 not very successful. The cores being too large for the holes. It was 

 hardly to be expected that weapon and core should after so many ages 

 and so many accidents have found their Avay to the same cabinet. But 

 the probability nevertheless appeal's very high that such specimens are 

 related to each other in the way above suggested. The hole in an 

 axe-head, as every collector knows well, is never of the same diameter 

 throughout. It is larger outside and then diminishes inwardly to 

 the middle, where it is smaller. This would naturally result, if they 

 wei e bored in this way. Let any one take a piece of cane or alder and 

 try with sand to drill a piece of stone, and he will find, that owing to 

 the difficulty of keeping the boring-tool perfectly upright the hole will 

 widen somewhat as it grows deeper. The process appears to have 

 been to bore to the middle and then break off the core and begin on 

 the other side and accordingly the cores, if such they be, seldom exceed 

 in length about one-half of the thickness of an axe-head. 



The relics, which I have just described (and that at Pi-inceton College) 

 are from the Swiss Lake Dwellings. My own collection and knowl- 

 edge of North American relics is small and I am not able to deter- 

 mine how far the supposition, I have above mentioned, may be in 

 accordance with observations made upon these by students more 

 familiar with North American archaeology. I rather make the sug- 

 gestion in the hope that some of them may bring forward facts in 

 favor or in opposition. The early races of men seem to have trodden 

 paths marvellously similar though in countries very distant from each 



