ETHNOLOGY. . 439 



inches, their width 1 inches, and they are three-fourths of an inch 

 thick in the middle. Their average weight is one and a half pound. 

 The fixed pattern which they are all intended to approximate is an 

 ovoid with pointed apex and regularly curved base. Many of 

 them are flat; others are a little concave on one side and convex on the 

 the other, though a very large majority of those I have examined are 

 equally convex on both sides, and all are carefully chipped to a sharp 

 edge all around. They were all made from globular or oval nodules of 

 black or dark-gray hornstoue, which were first split open and each part 

 again split or worked down by chipping to the shape and size required. 

 In several of the specimens the first fracture of the nodule forms the 

 side of the implement with but slight modification beyond a little trim- 

 ming of the edges. Many of them retain in the center the nucleus 

 around which the siliceous atoms agglomerated to form the nodule. In 

 a few the nucleus is a rough piece of limestone; in others it consists of 

 fragments of beautifully crystallized chalcedony, surrounded by regular 

 light and dark circles of eccentric accretion, and the exterior of the 

 rock was encrusted with a compact, drab-colored calcareo-siliceous coat- 

 iug half an inch in thickness, which in some of the specimens has not 

 been entirely removed. Nearly all the Beardstown disks were rough- 

 ened and discolored with patches of calcareous concretion almost as 

 hard and solid as the flint itself, indicative of undisturbed repose in 

 their clay envelopes for a great period of time. The raw material of 

 which these objects were wrought was imported from some locality re- 

 mote from their hiding-place. An Illiuoisan myself by birth, I have 

 nowhere in this State, during thirty years' observation of its geology, 

 found any number of hornstoue nodules in any of its strata. Among 

 the disks of the sacrificial mound at Clark's "Work, Ohio, nodules of 

 hornstoue were found,* but none, so far as I could ascertain, were 

 met with in the Frederickville deposit, and I am certain there were 

 none with the Beardstown flints. The nodules of hornstone found 

 buried at East Saint Louis, near the deposit of agricultural flint imple- 

 ments^ are the same iu texture and color as all the disks. Nodules of 

 this variety of flint, I am informed, are quite common in some parts of 

 Indiana, and I have often seen them in Southwestern Missouri. J Mr. 

 Squier thinks the Ohio disks drew their supplies of flint from a locality 

 known as " Flint Bidge," which extends through Licking and Muskingum 

 Counties in that State. "This ridge," he says, " extends for many m iles, 

 and countless pits are to be observed throughout its entire length, from 

 which the stone was taken. These excavations arc often 10 or 14 feet 

 deep, and occupy acres in extent." 



The buried flint nodules of East Saint Louis are the only ones of the 



* Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley, chapter xiii, page 214. 



t Smithsonian Annual Report for 1SG8, page 403. 



t See remarks on " Old Diggings," pages 93 and 205 of 1 and 11 Annual Reports of 

 the Geological Survey of Missouri, by G. C. Swallow, State geologist, Jefferson City, 

 1855. 



