STONE AGE IN NEW JERSEY. 247 



When we cousider, in anotlier chapter, the relics designated as '' rude 

 implements/' we shall find that these are not especially characteristic 

 of any one locality, bnt seem scattered uniformly over the State, while 

 they are deeper in the soil than the majority of so-called ^' surface "- 

 specimens. 



Starting- at Trenton, N. J., the head of tide-water, and following the 

 rivers course in a southerly direction, we find the rocky, mountainous 

 shores of the upper river succeeded by a gravelly, bluffy bank on the 

 New Jersey side, which varies in height from twenty to one hundred feet, 

 and linall}' disappears near the town of Burlington, being replaced there 

 and thence by almost continuous level, sandy shores, terminating at Cape 

 May, the southern extremity of the State. Along the first five miles of 

 the brow of this bluffy bank, and extending inland some half mile, is the 

 tract from which has been gathered the great bulk of our collection 

 and the most interesting specimens. This bluff" does not always imme- 

 diately face the river, but, receding half a mile or more between Tren- 

 ton and Bordentown, forms, between these two points, a semicircular 

 tract of meadow, of varying elevation above the river's level, and on the 

 higher portions, or knolls, are found numerous relics ; but the greater 

 number are from the hill-top fields, although it may be that the rare oc- 

 currence of plowing in the meadows, as compared with the uplands, may 

 in some measure account for the difference. 



A glance at this limited tract of country, even in the highly artificial 

 condition that it now presents, will plainly show why it was a favorite 

 spot with the red men. Placing their wigwams on the brow of the hill, 

 they had at their command an unbroken stretch of forest of white-oak, 

 pine, and chestnut, harboring the elk, deer, and bears, while in the deep 

 creeks traversing the meadows below them, and the broad river beyond, 

 were fishing-facilities that in that ancient day were not to be excelled 

 by any within a thousand miles. 



Chaptek II. 



EITDE IMPLEMENTS. 



So attractive to the amateur, or the more scientific student, are the 

 finished specimens of wrought jasper and polished porphyry, that the 

 "rude implements," sparingly scattered among them, and buried still 

 more deeply in the soil, are either overlooked, or the passing glance 

 given them suggests that they are unfinished specimens, or the crude 

 results of a beginner in the art of flint-chipping. This we believe to be 

 an error. These "rude implements" are usually formed of the mineral 

 that characterizes the locality where they are found ; those met 

 with at Trenton, X. J., are all of the sandstone that forms the bed of 

 the river at the rapids, and crops out here and there. This rock varies 

 somewhat in texture, and the implements also are found to be made 

 both of the denser and the softer strata of the stone, as though frag- 



