376 ETHNOLOGY. 



f orated specimens. We have seen that certain stones, bearing marks 

 of human workmanship, have been, in part, the tools with which were 

 fashioned the vast majority of the relics which we find. 



A stone-hammer to block out and rudely shax^e another stone was not 

 all that was required by the stone-implement maker. The finished im- 

 plements generally have lost the majority of the stone-hammer marks, 

 and such wearing-off was evidently not done by the mere use of the imple- 

 ment. It was designed, and not accidental. This "rubbing-down" 

 was, at first, accomplished by simply taking the weapon and any other 

 pebble of suitable size and rubbing the one upon the other; but in time 

 there w^as an advance over this primitive method. Stones of a partic- 

 ular shape, grain, degree of hardness, &c., were chosen as the best 

 adapted for the purpose of smoothing weapons, and instead of being 

 utilized once and thrown aside they were retained for future use, them- 

 selves soou becoming altered in shape aud possessed of one or more of 

 those long, slender, polished surfaces, common to them all, and whereby 

 they are characterized as a distinct class. These relics we have desig- 

 nated "polishing-tools." 



Figure 221 represents a good average polishiug-tool, or, as desig- 

 nated by Nilsson, " whetstone." This specimen is an oblong, flat- 

 tened cobble-stone, such as are found by thousands in the bed of the 

 Delaware Eiver. The upper surface has beeu considerably used, and is 

 now much smoother than the natural or unused surface of the implement. 

 At one side about half of the edge has been worn off, leaving the ends 

 intact. This wearing away has extended deeply into the body of the 

 stone, and the i^olishiug space thus produced, with the oval ends of the 

 stone, give the specimen a more tool-like appearance than is common 

 to whetstones generally. This specimen, figure 221, measures nine inches 

 in length, and about two and one-half in width, aud is about the maxi- 

 mum size of polishing-tools as they occur iu New Jersey, excepting, of 

 course, portions of immovable bowlders, which being handy and of 

 proper material, were used by stone-implement makers when not incon- 

 veniently distant from the workshop. The immense bowlder in Center 

 street, Trenton, N. J., in which is the mortar described in chapter xxiv, 

 figure 200, had a surface over a foot in length, and seven inches wide. The 

 red man evidently was accustomed to go to this to renew the fine edge 

 which characterized a well-made porphyry hand-ax or skinniug-knife, or 

 to give new polish to a cherished breast-plate. 



Figure 222 represents a second example of polishing-tool, being a stone 

 of much finer grain than that of the preceding example, and having a 

 number of very smooth, level surfaces, it is still admirably adapted for 

 polishing porphyry and horn-stone implements. About seven inches 

 long and one inch and a half Avide, it is of just the size for a whetstone, 

 and yet is easily carried about. Considering the amount of wear it has 

 had, aud its virtues as a sharpening-tool, and even now for metallic 

 implements, we doubt not but it was a cherished specimen. At various 

 points on the surface of the specimen there are narrow, deep lines, which, 



