396 



NORTH AMEEICAIT STONE IMPLEMENTS. 



of rock, which evidently had been carried to the spot from the bank of 

 the Bourbeuse Eiver to be hurled at the animal. But the burning and 

 hurling- of stones, it seems, did not satisfy the assailants of the masto- 

 don ; for Dr. Koch found among the ashes, bones, and rocks several 

 stone arrow-heads^ a spear-head, and some stone axes, which were taken 

 out in the presence of a number of witnesses, consisting of the people of 

 the neighborhood, who had been attracted by the novelty of the exca- 

 vation. The layer of ashes and bones was covered by strata of alluvial 

 deposits, consisting of clay, sand, and soil, from eight to nine feet thick, 

 which form the bottom of the Bourbeuse liiver in general. 



About one year after this excavation. Dr. Koch found at another 

 place, in Benton County, Missouri, in the bottom of the Pomrae de Terro 

 Eiver, about ten miles above its junction with the Osage, several stone 

 arroic-heads mingled with the bones of a nearly entire skeleton of the 

 Missourium. The two arrow-heads found with the bones " were in such 

 a position as to furuish evidence still more conclusive, perhaps, than in 

 the other case, of their being of equal, if not older date, thau the bones 

 themselves ; for, besides that they were found in a layer of vegetable 

 mold which was covered by twenty feet in thickness of alternate layers 

 of sand, clay, and gravel, one of the arrow-heads lay underneath the 

 thigh-bone of the skeleton, the bone actually resting in contact upon it, 

 so that it could not have been brought thither after the deposit of the 

 bone ; a fact which I was careful thoroughly to investigate."* 



It affords me particular satisfaction to 

 present in Fig. 1 a full-size drawing of the 

 last-named arrow-head, which is still in the 

 possession of Mrs. Elizabeth Koch, of Saint 

 Louis, the widow of the discoverer. The 

 drawing was made after a i)hotograph, for 

 which I am indebted to Mrs. Koch. It will 

 be noticed that the point, one of the barbs, 

 and a corner of the steui of this arrow-head — 

 if it really was an arrow-head, and not the 

 armature of a javelin or spear — are broken 

 off; but there remains enough of it to make 

 out its original shape, which is exactly that 

 of similar weapons used by the aborigines 

 in historical times. The specimen in ques- 

 tion, which, as I presume, was found by Dr. 

 Koch in its present mutilated shape, con- 

 sists of a light-brown, somewhat mottled flint.t 



Fi-. 1. 



*Kocb, iu Trausactious of the Academy of Science of Saint Louis, vol. 1,(1860,) p. 61, &c. 



+ 1 am well aware that the reality of Dr. Koch's discovery has been doubted by some, 

 although it is difficult to perceive why he should have made those statements, if not 

 true, at a time when the antiquity of man was not yet discussed, either in Europe or 

 hero, and he, therefore, could expect nothiufj but contradiction, public opiuiou being 



