472 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 9 



questions presented by the occurrence of the stone and its use by the 

 native tribes, will be briefly discussed in the present article. 



All specimens illustrated, with the exception of several from 

 Virginia, are in the collections of the United States National Museum, 

 Washington, D. C. 



AGE OF THE QUARRIES 



In connection with the wide distribution of steatite and the great 

 number of places where it was obtained by the Indians, two questions 

 are presented : the age of the quarries, large and small ; and the iden- 

 tity of the tribes or groups of tribes by whom they were opened and 

 worked. 



The extent of the country in which the quarries occur precludes the 

 possibility of all having been worked by a single group of tribes, nor 

 is there reason to believe that all had been opened contemporaneously. 

 The use of soapstone is thought to have developed in the north and to 

 have advanced southward. Knowledge of the material and of the 

 manner in which it could be employed would have passed from tribe 

 to tribe, or from region to region. Centuries elapsed between the 

 time the first soapstone was removed by the Indians from a mass in 

 situ and the abandonment by them of the last quarry. 



There are no known references in the early narratives to Europeans 

 having witnessed the actual use of soapstone by the Indians, although 

 it may have been known to the native tribes in some regions until 

 contact with the whites. 



One reference, in a book written nearly two centuries ago,^ alludes 

 to the use of soapstone utensils during an earlier generation, about 

 the latter part of the seventeenth century. This was the work of the 

 Swedish scientist, Peter Kalm, who wrote, when describing customs 

 in New Jersey (vol. 1, pp. 343-344) : 



A few of the oldest Sivedes could yet remember seeing the Indians boil their 

 meat In these pots. They are very thin, and of different sizes ; they are made 

 sometimes of a greenish, and sometimes of a grey pot-stoue, and some are made 

 of another species of apyrous stone; the bottom and the margin are frequently 

 above an inch thick. The Indians, notwithstanding their being unacquainted 

 with iron, steel, and other metals, have learnt to hollow out very ingeniously 

 these pots or kettles of pot-stone. 



This obviously referred to the use of soapstone vessels similar to 

 others so widely distributed. But they were not in use when Kalm 

 visited the Colony in 1749, and it is evident that the Indians of the 

 region ceased making them soon after the establishment of the 

 European settlements. Early narratives often referred to earthen- 

 ware bowls and utensils of different forms being made and used by 



'Kalm, Peter, Travels into North America. 2d ed., 2 vols. London, 1772. 



