476 ANIJUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 19 3 9 



VIRGINIA AND NORTHWARD TO NEW ENGLAND 

 VIRGINIA 



Professor Haynes in a short article some years ago * referred to the 

 use of soapstone by the Romans and expressed the belief that the 

 stone mentioned by Pliny was obtained from a quarry not far from 

 Lake Como, near Chiavenne, the ancient Clavenna. The quarry was 

 worked for many centuries. The stone was steatite or soapstone. 

 As stated by Professor Haynes : 



The reference to Pliny will be found in his Natural History, book 36, chap- 

 ter 44: "At Siphnos there is a kind of stone which is hollowed and turned in 

 the lathe for making cooking utensils and vessels for keeping provisions; a 

 thing that to my own knowledge is done with the green stone of Comum, in 

 Italy." 



Siphnos, an island in the Aegean Sea, was far distant from Comum, 

 the present Como, in northern Italy. But soapstone was used where- 

 ever found. Thus we have two references to its use in making food 

 vessels soon after the beginning of the Christian era, and it is easily 

 conceived that it had been similarly employed during a much earlier 

 period. 



In concluding his article Professor Haynes wrote : 



Professor Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, first directed attention to 

 the site of a soapstone quarry worked for similar purposes by the Indians of 

 our own country. This is at Chula, Amelia County, Va., and it has been 

 thoroughly explored and described by Mr. F. H. Gushing in the Smithsonian 

 Report for 1878. 



Amelia County. — As told in the report prepared by Secretary 

 Baird : "^ 



During the spring of 1875, some specimens of steatite were received from 

 the quarry of John B. Wiggin, in Chula, Amelia County, Va. Among these 

 were fragments of rude vessels, which from their number and unfinished condi- 

 tion, were regarded as indicating that the place in question was once an 

 aboriginal mine * * * 



Inasmuch as, at the time, no quarry of this kind had been discovered, and 

 as, moreover, aboriginal methods of mining and working pot-stone were entirely 

 unknown, it was thought advisible to have a careful exploration of the place 

 undertaken, which was intrusted to Mr. F. H. Cushing, who visited the locality 

 in June last [1877], causing excavations of sufiicient extent to be made to 

 reveal a large portion of the rock surface worked by the Indians. 



Shallow excavations 10 to 70 feet in diameter, filled with vegetal 

 mold, indicated the quarries of the Indians. A space about 40 by 60 

 feet was cleared, and "everywhere over the rock surface, thus exposed, 



* Haynes, Henry W., Notes upon ancient soapstone quarries, worked for the manu- 

 facture of cooking utensils. Proc. Amer. Antiq. Soc, n. s., vol. 2, pt. 3, p. 364, Apr. 25, 

 1883. 



"Ann. Rep. Smithsonian Inst, for 1878, pp. 44-45, 1879. 



