312 ETHNOLOGY. 



Figure 131 represents a beautifully chipped jasper scraper of the tri- 

 angular form, and is the smallest specimen we have met with. It is a 

 little less than one inch in length, and almost three-fourths of an inch 

 in breadth, and is, therefore, of the minimum size according to Sir John 

 Lubbock. Although chipped upon both sides, as is the rule with Kew 

 Jersey scrapers, it is very nearly flat upon the under side, the sloping 

 from the middle toward the edges being very gradual. The front, or 

 scraping edge is carefully chipped at about right angles with the upper 

 surface of the specimen. A ridge extends along the upper side of the 

 whole length of the specimen, and from it, the surface slopes uniformly 

 to the edge. The object in fastening a handle on an implement so small 

 as this, the use of which is supposed to have been that of scraping, in 

 rendering skins pliant and available for clothing, does not appear, unless 

 it was used for skins of the smallest mammals. 



Mr. Evans* has figured no example of a scraper that is equal to this, 

 figure 131, in general finish and workmanship, and only one that is as 

 short. His specimen is broader, however, although otherwise it bears 

 much resemblance to that from New Jersey. 



Mr. Evans, in his most interesting chapter t on "scrapers," has ad- 

 vanced many reasons for his belief that some of our so-called scrapers 

 were used in producing fire, in connection with pyrites, remarking of the 

 English specimens, " we find some of these instruments with the edge 

 battered and bruised to such an extent that it can hardly have been the 

 result of scraping, in the ordinary sense of the word." 



We have many scrapers with battered edges, and of a quadrangular 

 outline, very similar in general appearance to the modern "strike-a- 

 lights," which we doubt not were used, as Mr. Evans suggests. Figure 

 132 represents such a specimen of " scraper." It is of yellow jasper, an 

 inch and a half long, an inch wide, and half an inch thick near the 

 middle of the specimen. The front edge is much battered and has every 

 appearance of having been struck against a mineral as hard as pyrites. 



Pyrites, in masses of various sizes, is very abundant about Tren- 

 ton, N J., where these short, thick scrapers are found. It occurs in 

 the beds of clay which crop out of the hillsides along the Kew Jersey 

 shore of the Delaware, being there attached in large masses to the fossil 

 trees imbedded in these strata. 



In closing this chapter, an illustration is given of a slate specimen, fig- 

 ure 133, which has particularly interested me from the very marked re- 

 semblance it has to a specimen of scraper, found by Sir John Lubbock 

 at Bourdeilles, in the South of France, and figured the natural size in 

 Prehistoric Times. I Our New Jersey specimen is identical with it in 

 length, while the handle is immaterially broader, the only noticeable 

 difference being that our specimen is chipped upon both sides. 



There is, perhaps, nothing so interesting connected with the study of 



* Anc. Stono Imps, of Great Britain, p. 277, lig. 220. 

 1 1. c, pp. 280-2d6. 1 2cl ed., p. 92, fig. 103. 



