^48 ETHNOLOGY. 



inents were broken off and chipped into shape from auy convenient 

 point. 



This class of antiquities is not abundant, considering the whole num- 

 ber of specimens we have gathered, about ten thousand, and embrac- 

 ing nearly every class of relics. The proportion is less than 2 per cent, 

 of the whole number. Careful examination of a series shows that they 

 <;anuot be merely roughly-outlined pieces intended for future more 

 finished work, inasmuch as the present general character and dimensions 

 of the great bulk of them renders additional chipping impracticable. 

 The larger " rude implements " would, if further chipped away, form axes 

 and lance-heads of much smaller dimensions than the great majority of 

 those that we now find. 



Figure 1 represents an average specimen of the flat-bottomed, peak- 

 backed stones, known in some localities as "turtle-backs," a name that 

 admirably describes their general appearance. Made of the ordinary 

 Delaware Kiver sandstone, this specimen measures four inches in length 

 and two and one-half inches in width. The bottom is nearly a perfect 

 plane, and shows, by the slight indentations and scratch-like markings, 

 that it has been chipped into its present shape, and not accidentally 

 broken. Its greatest thickness is one and one-eighth inches ; the " peak," 

 or highest point of the back, being in the middle of the specimen, meas- 

 ured lengthwise, but rather nearer one side than the other, or off the 

 center ; but the broader side of the back does not appear better adapted 

 for cutting than the narrower or more abruptly descending side. 



Although this stone, from long exposure, has become i:)orous upon 

 the surface, the edges still remain sharp, regular, and exhibit an amount 

 of skill in "flint-chipping" about equal to that of the ordinary slate 

 lance-heads, spear and arrow points. Close examination shows that the 

 back has been worked into its present shape by a series of powerful 

 blows, or by pressure, leaving large surfaces usually, several of the planes 

 being those of a single detachment of a fragment of the rock, in some 

 instances extending from the peak to the edge of the implement. 



Had these fractures occurred in an ordinary water- worn i^ebble, 

 throughout its rough-and-tumble existence, they would assuredly have 

 happened at various periods, and, besides leaving different degrees of 

 weathering on the fractured surfaces, would also exhibit traces of the 

 causes that produced the breakage, as in scratches where a flinty rock 

 had graved and cut the underlying pebble, in ground-off angles where 

 some huge mass had been rolled upon and crushed off the weaker i)roject- 

 ing portions left by a previous altering agency. It is needless to state no 

 traces of occurrences like these are discoverable, but, on the contrary, 

 every portion of the surface plainly indicates tliat, by a "tool" in the 

 hand of a workman, -was the " turtle-back" shaped. 



It is not easy to conjecture the special use of such a stone implement. 

 There is nothing about it to show that it was intended to be attached 

 to a handle. It seeins impossible, in fact, to use it otherwise than by 



