OBSERVATIONS ON STONE-CHIPPING. 881 



Here also are found massive flakes or chips of flue-grained quartzite, 

 that teach another lesson to a seeking practical mechanic, nosing about 

 among the accumulated refuse. These flakes are often rough on one 

 face, showing them to be an outside scale from the stone; occasionally, 

 fragments of large flat implements that have been classed as agricult- 

 ural (hoes or spades). These fragments have not been broken by want 

 of skill in the workmen, but from undiscovered seams in the stone that 

 did not show until the outer surface was thrown ofl'. Xone of these fi'ag- 

 ments show any sign of use ; in fact, some of them haA e not been wrought 

 to an edge. I have several specimens of hoes from the same ridge be- 

 yond the settlement where it would naturally be cultivated, that from 

 their highly polished working ends show long use. The lesson is that 

 they are not made from great flakes, but rather represent the core from 

 which flakes have been thrown off". Finished hoes and spades frequently 

 have portions of natural stone partings that have not been worked off, 

 and show them to have been worked from thin slabs. These slabs are 

 a metamorphic thin bedded sandstone, belonging to what our State 

 geologist, Prof. A. H. Worthen, calls the Chester group. They occur 

 near the Saline, about 8 miles above the flaking ground, in an upheaval 

 that has brought them to the surface with the upturned edges of the 

 carboniferous limestone through which the salt springs flow. This is 

 probably the source whence this quartzite was obtained, as slabs from 1 

 inch to 2 inches thick are found there ; but there are many other locations 

 stretching across Southern Illinois to the Mississippi Eiver where they 

 also occur. 



It is the large agricultural implements that I refer to as having been 

 made from quartzite slabs, some of which are as much as 16 inches long 

 by 6 inches and 7 inches wide at the spade-blade end. There are many 

 smaller specimens of the same form and character that have been regu- 

 larly flaked from chert, white waxy quartz, yellow and brown jasper, 

 that do not exceed 6 or 7 inches in length, their working ends highly 

 polished by long use in digging. It is the large hoes and spades flaked 

 from quartzite slabs that to me are evidence of a much higher degree 

 of intelligence and skill than the most highly-finished spear and arrow 

 points evince. Take an edge view of one of these large spades, and 

 observe how accurately straight and free from wind tTie edge has been 

 carried entirely around the implement, the flattening of one side and 

 rounding the other ; then observe that the long flat very slightly 

 depressed flakes have been thrown off at right angles to the edge, even 

 to those curving around its digging or cutting end, which appear to 

 have radiated from a common center. If these flakes have been thrown 

 ofl" by blows so struck and directed as to preserve the cleanly lined 

 edges, as the operator had carried them in his mind, a skill must have 

 been acquired that we cannot approach. 



In 'all the experiments that I have tried with a hammer, whether of 

 stone, steel, soft iron, or copper, they have failed to produce the desired 

 H. Mis. 15 56 



