STONE AGE IN NEW JERSEY. 303 



•well defined middle ridge down one side, and were flat upon the olher, 

 thus presenting, in section, a triangular outline, wliicli would increase 

 the strength very much over an ordinary arrow-head. 



Messrs. Squier and Davis* assert that "knives of flint and obsidian 

 have been taken from several of the mounds;" and one figured is nearly 

 (in shape) identical with an accompanying one from a Scandinavian 

 barrow. We have not met with any of this pattern in ISTew Jersey, which 

 are, according to Squier and Davis, "not less than six inches in length 

 {i. €., some of them) and three-fourths of an inch in breadth ; others are 

 not more than two inches long, and of exceeding delicacy. Besides 

 these, and constituting a much larger class, are found cutting-imple- 

 ments chipped with great neatness, so as to produce as clear and sm^^oth 

 a cutting-edge as practicable." These latter, in being "chipped," ap- 

 Ijroach our New Jersey specimens, and we doubt not the other pattern, 

 if it does not note exist in some of the large private collections in the 

 State, will yet be found. Obsidian, in the shape of arrow-points, but 

 always broken, has been picked up in New Jersey. 



Chapter XI. 



SKINNIKGKNIVES. 



When it is remembered that the primitive people whose stone imple- 

 ments we have been describing were ijerhaps wholly dependent upon 

 the skins of the animals captured in the chase, not only for clothing but 

 for shelter, it is not strange that much care was exercised in fasliioning 

 and finishing implements for detaching the skin from the carcass and 

 for its subsequent preparation for domestic use. We are prepared, 

 therefore, to find in skinning knives and in scrapers, to be separately con- 

 sidered, stone tools that have been elaborately worked out from the 

 most desirable minerals. 



Wherever there is unquestionably the site of a village or town of the 

 aborigines, there will we find specimens, sometimes many, of carefully- 

 polished stone implements, leaving a well-defined cutting-edge; these 

 we have called skinning-knives ; a designation embracing tlie whole 

 ground of use to which they were put by the race of men who made 

 them. 



Figure 114 represents a very fine example of skinning-knife plowed up 

 in a field bordering the CrosswicksCreck, Burlington County, New Jersey. 

 This polished implement is made from a large pebble of yellowish sand 

 stone, of such finegrained consistency as to bo capable of the high pol- 

 ish which is still to be seen in one or two places on the specimen in 

 question. This skinning-knite measures six inches in length at the 

 thick back, but the 1)lade, or cutting-edge, starting at an acute angle 

 with the ridge-like back, makes a gentle, perfect curve, which, at the mid- 

 dle of the specimen, is but one inch and a half distant from the lower 



"Aug. Moil. Miss. Valley, [>. 215, fig-. 105 — (No. 2.) 



