132 



Hopewell Mound Group 



ments. It seems probable that about five hundred implements were 

 originally placed on the altar. After much painstaking work, C. L. 

 Owen of Field Museum has restored a number of these knives and 

 blades. The largest, broken by the heat of the altar, was originally 

 38 cm long and 14 cm wide, and they range from this down to small 

 objects 5.5 cm long. The average dimensions of the larger implements 

 are: Length 25 cm, width, 8-1 1 cm, thickness, 0.5-1 cm. Most of 

 them are of the forms shown in Plates LXXV — LXXVI, and in 

 Willoughby's drawings (Fig. 26). The points of several of them are 



Fig. 26. 

 Obsidian Implements from Altar 2. 



curiously curved, after the manner of knives. Almost all of them belong 

 to three or four patterns, which are distinctively western, and da not 

 compare with types common in the Mississippi Valley. In most of them, 

 the notches or barbs are cut diagonally. There is a slight widening in 

 the upper part of the stems. The bases of the unbarbed ones are often 

 angular, coming almost to a point. In some of the more slender ones, 



