STONE AGE IN NEW JERSEY. 347 



the most part in tlie British Museum. Four of them were of a rude 

 quadrangular form, with flat bottoms, aud from 3J to 7 inches high. 

 The other three were ovah They were formed of schistose rock, aud 

 some of them still bear traces of the action of fire." Mr. Evans also 

 figures a stone cui^, which seems to be but a " restoration" of the frag- 

 ment we have figured, aud of that which we have in our cabinet. 



There is really more difference in degree than in kind between 

 such stone cups as figure 191 has been, and the " paint-cup " and " corn- 

 mills " yet to be described ; in the former, a vessel to hold a liquid has 

 been required, and so was pecked at and hollowed out to a greater depth 

 than were the mills and paint-cups, which were needed only to reduce 

 small portions of grain or lumps of clay to a fine powder. If the red 

 color of the inside of figure 191 is a trace of the red paiut which was so 

 abundantly used in the toilets of the aborigines, then, indeed, the speci- 

 men is a fragment of a "paint-cup," such as we shall more particularly 

 describe in the following chapter ; but if such were its use it probably 

 is an exceptiomil case, as paint-cups, according to our acquaintance with 

 them, were small v^essels for individual use only, and certainly" such a frag- 

 ment as figure 191 would hold enough paint to cover the entire body of 

 the most stalwart warrior. 



Fragments of the ordinary pottery are frequently abundant in the 

 fresh- water or inland mussel-shell heaps, associated with slabs of stone 

 and rounded or oval cobble-stones, on the former of which, and by means 

 of the latter, the Indians crushed the Uiiios and Anodontas so numerous 

 in our rivers and larger creeks. 



Chapter XXI. 



PAINT- CUPS. 



When it is remembered how elaborately the warriors of our modern 

 Indian tribes are painted when on the warpath, it is not strange that 

 we should find traces of this custom among the relics of the older Stone 

 age of New Jersey. The traces to which we refer are certain hollowed 

 stones, or diminutive mortars, in which the mineral mass of colored 

 claj" was reduced to powder and prei)ared for application to the body. 

 Such i)aint-cups or small mortars are iiot common in the localities with 

 which we are most familiar. They are usually only water-worn pebbles 

 which have had a natural hollow or depression upon one side, which was 

 either enlarged at first, or the original hollow was utilized as a paint- 

 receptacle, and gradually increased by the rubbing action of the little 

 pestle. Messrs. Lartet and Christy have figured a series of mortars 

 from the caves and rock-shelters of France. Of these " mortars," wo 

 have many identical specimens; but it is curious that the most perfect 

 or undoubted [)aint-cn[) in our collection should bo so very similar to a 

 specimen which they include among their " mortars " as doubtful. This 

 "doubtful" mortar orpaint-cup is described as " a water- worn, irregu- 



