OBSERVATIONS ON STONE-CHIPPING> 



883 



iiMMit than by the use of a flaking-staff, as described by Catlin. Figure 

 7 shows the mauuer of utiliziug a standing tree with spreading roots 



Fig. 7. 



for this i)urpose ; a flattened root makes a firm seat for the stone, a 

 notch cut into the body of a tree the fulcrum for the lever; either a 

 pointed stick is placed on the point of the stone where the flake is to 

 be split from it, its upper end resting against the under side of the 

 lever, or a bone or horn point let into and secured to the lever takes 

 the place of this stick. When the pressure is brought to bear, by the 

 weight of the operation, on the long end of the lever, a second man 

 with a stone, mall, or heavy club strikes a blow on the upper side of 

 the lever, directly over the pointed stick or horn-point, and the flake is 

 thrown off. 



Lubbock, in " Prehistoric Times," illustrated the Eskimo scraper as 

 used at the j^resent time in preparing skins. When we consider the 

 close proximity' of the flint workshop to the great salt licks on the Sa- 

 line River, the flowing salt springs, the deeply worn buftalo paths still 

 to be seen after having been subject to the destructive work of cultiva- 

 tion by the plow for more than a generation, where skins by the thou- 

 sands must have been dressed, it is not surprising that the many chert 

 flakes that have been split off with too great a curvature of their flat 

 side in their length to admit of being chipped into arrow-points should 

 have been utilized for scrapers, many of which are the exact /ac simile . 

 of what Lubbock has illustrated as the Eskimo and others of the Euro- 

 pean type, of which he says : 



" It is curious, that while these spoon-shaped scrapers are so common , 

 in Europe, they are very rare, if indeed they occur at all, in Xorth Am- 

 erica south of the Eskimo region." 



1 think it most probable from their close resemblance to refuse flakes 

 and chips they were overlooked by early collectors. In the great game . 

 districts of the West, both in flint workshops and among the waste of • 

 Indian settlements, they are much more abundant than arrow-heads, 

 or any other implements, with the exception of the small flint knives,. 



