254 ETHNOLOGY. 



the weapon has been so carefully smoothed down that the slight iue- 

 qualities and shallow indentations can scarcely be felt by the hand. Its 

 weight is seven and one-half ponnds. With the handle placed where the 

 groove is, it must have produced a great strain upon the wrist. The 

 small extent of the edge suggests that it was intended to inflict one effect- 

 ive hloio, and not that its main use was chipping or girdling of trees. 



This specimen was found on a small gravelly island in the Delaware 

 River, and was presented to the author by his friend Mr. W. Dean, of 

 Lambertville, N. J. 



Figure 12 represents the average style of ax of this particular pat- 

 tern, which we believe is found throughout the United States. They 

 vary from two to five and seven inches in length, and occasionally, as 

 we have seen, reach eleven and one-half inches. The smallest specimen 

 we had met with for a long time was scant three inches; but, as the ex- 

 treme edge was wholly broken away, it probably measured, when per- 

 fect, fully three inches. (See figure 13.) We have since collected a 

 still smaller and more perfect specimen, (figure 14,) which measures only 

 two and one-half inches in length; the perfect back being in the natural 

 condition of the pebble from which the little ax was made. 



This variety of ax is most usually found to be of sandstone, and the 

 ordinary cobble-stones, or water-worn pebbles of the adjacent river-beds. 

 At and above Trenton, K J., the bed of the Delaware River is wholly 

 composed of loose stones of various sizes, with here and there an out- 

 cropping of stationary rock. These loose pebbles or cobble-stones are 

 found on examination to frequently bear considerable general resem- 

 blance to the finished axes, and to need little work upon them other 

 than making the groove and rubbing one end down until a cutting-edge 

 is produced. So abundant, as it seems to us, are the well-adapted 

 stones, in shape and size, that we wonder why so frequently we meet 

 with stone-axes that have been carefully pecked over the whole 

 surface to bring them down to the proper shape. This may be ex- 

 plained, perhaps, by the suggestion that many axes were made where 

 stones at all suitable were difflcult to obtain, and that the frequent wars 

 or wanderings of a community and bartering may have resulted in the 

 commingling of the axes of a multitude of localities, many of them 

 miles distant from each other. We know, too, that tribes came from 

 long distances to make autumnal visits to our sea-coast, and, of course, 

 on such journeys nvould always be provided with, and frequently lose, 

 as they passed through the State, many specimens of every variety of 

 both weapons and domestic implements. 



Occasionally, this pattern is produced in porphyry, and in that case 

 is invariably polished. We have knowledge of some specimens of this 

 pattern, and of this material, of immense size and weight, but could 

 not, unfortunately, learn the exact numbers of inches and pounds ; but 

 we do not suppose they really measured more than figure 11, although 



