272 



Allusion is made in classic writings to an arrow-head of this kind used 

 by an Emperor in some gymnastic exploit in a Roman circus. 



Division Fourth. In this department is embraced a variety of arti- 

 cles that are not the least curious and interesting ; they are usually 

 the best finished, many of them elaborate in construction and sym- 

 metrical in form, and some highly polished ; they show that labor 

 and skill were equally taxed in the stone period, rude and impover- 

 ished as it may be called, to ornament the person, and to as great an 

 extent as in these days of fashion and refinement. 



The devotees of fashion punished themselves by heavy weights 

 carried upon the person, in the form of '' gorgets," ''canoes," and 

 pendants of slate or other stones, of which, doubtless, they were as 

 vain as our own dames and dandies of bracelets, and chains, and jew- 

 elled ornaments. 



Beads of quartz, with drilled holes for the string, afford evidence 

 of patient industry that must have been severely taxed, especially as, 

 in many instances, the labor must have been lost by fracture of the 

 material before completion of the article. 



Shells and slates were of easier manipulation than the last-named 

 material, and of course most frequently employed in the division 

 under consideration. 



Under the head of luxuries, are included the pipes, of the world- 

 wide custom of smoking; among them are the most elaborately exe- 

 cuted articles of the stone period. The plainest forms were no doubt 

 made by the means and processes indicated in the preceding part of 

 this paper; but when we take into view the numerous characteristic 

 productions of the mounds, recovered from the hidden repose of cen- 

 turies untold, we are lost in wonder at the knowledge of nature 

 which they exhibit, and entirely at fault, as to the means of execu- 

 tion which their elaborate construction evinces. 



Dr. Emerson described a discovery made by himself some 

 years ago on the tide waters of the Delaware, of a bed of 

 charred human bones, broken up into small fragments, and 

 lying over them many fragments of Indian pipes made of baked 

 clay. A single perfect specimen was of a symmetrical and 

 peculiar form, unlike the well-known forms of Indian pipes 

 discovered elsewhere, inasmuch as its bore was perfectly 

 straight. Dr. Emerson judged these peculiarities to be indi- 

 cations of the greater antiquity and different stirpal origin 

 of the Indians whose remains were here interred. 



