PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



OBSEEVATIONS Oif STONE CHIPPING.* 



By George Ercol Sellers, of Bowlesville, III. 



When a boy, living among mechanics, artists, and artisans, preparing 

 for the profession of civil and mechanical engineer, it was natural that 

 1 should be attracted to the studio with its adjoining workshop and 

 taxidermic room of my mother's father, Charles Wilson Peale, and his 

 sous. There was always something new to be learned there. He was 

 a native of the i^rovince of Maryland, the son of one of the earliest 

 Episcopal ministers who came from England and settled in that colony. 

 He always took great interest in the history and incidents connected 

 with the early settlement of Maryland and Virginia. He had a shelf 

 in his library devoted to books and pamphlets relating thereto, many 

 of which seemed to have been sent from Europe to him, for they bore 

 inscriptions of "presented by," or "received from," my friend, Sir J. 

 Banks or from Count Eumford, and others. Among them was a volume 

 of autograph letters from his friend Thomas Jefferson on the same sub 

 Ject. This shelf was particularly attractive to me, for it always led to 

 reminiscences of the most interesting character from my grandfather. 

 On one occasion I came across on this library shelf a thin bound volume 

 of letters of John Smith from the Virginia colony. It was a London pub- 

 lication, and (if my recollection is not at fault) comprised several pamph- 

 lets bound together. A passage in one of these letters, in describing an 

 Indian he had met with, referred to the making of stone implements. I 

 have not seen the i)ublication since, and cannot after a lapse of more 

 than sixty years quote from it, but will give the substance as impressed 

 on my mind. He said in substance that the Indian carried with him a 

 pouch filled with flakes of precious stones, and within his mantle, in a 

 pocket made for the purpose, a small instrument made of bone or horn 

 that he valued above all price and would not part with, and with it he 

 deftly shaped arrow-points and spear-heads from or out of the stone 



* In the summer of 1885 Mr. Sellers visited Washington and called upon Dr. Rau, 

 to whom he gave an account of his experiences in stone- chipping, but dwelling chiefly 

 on what he had heard from Mr. Catlin concerning this subject. Dr. Rau, perceiving 

 the importance of Mr. Sellers's remarks, induced him to prepare the present article. 

 It will he seen that the Indians of this country resorted in stone-chipping to methods 

 similar to those employed by the Mexicans, as related by Torquemada and Moto- 

 linia. 



871 



