238 ANTIQUITIES IN COLORADO. 



of the encampments, it will be well to describe some of the most promi- 

 nent Indian implements found in this neighborhood, because we may 

 safely say (if we except a few scattered tools and an occasional arrow- 

 head lost in hunting) that they are all to be found in these places. The 

 most abundant implements are chipping-axes, hammers, skin-scrapers, 

 mortars, and pestles, but others occur to which we are unable to apply 

 names, owing to our ignorance of their former uses. The chipping-axes 

 are usually made from pieces of quartzite, worn or chipped down to an 

 edge, and were most probably employed in chipping out flint-flakes to 

 be used afterward in the manufacture of weapon-points. The liammers' 

 are simply oval stones, sometimes grooved on one or more sides, for the 

 purpose of attaching them to handles. The skin-scrapers found in this 

 vicinity do not differ much, if at all, from those procured in other local- 

 ities. The so-called " corn-mills" consist of a flat slab of rock containing 

 on its upper surface an oval depression, and a roundish stone supposed 

 to be a pestle. These mills were probably used in pulverizing" roots, and 

 perhaps corn, although I hardly think the Indians of this section culti- 

 vated corn, or any other sort of grain. Sometimes small pieces of fine- 

 grained quartzose rock are found, which appear to have been used in 

 polishing or sharpening weapons. A friend of mine states that he found 

 near Idaho Springs an earthern jar, a foot below the surface, containing 

 a quantity of reddish paint, and I have found at the encampment at 

 Apex small pieces of a reddish colored sandstone, which, on being wet 

 and rubbed on the flesh, leaves a slight red stain. 1 have been informed 

 that the Indians used it for paint, but I hardly think this can be the 

 case, as the sandstone is quite gritty and would scratch the flesh consid- 

 erably. The Indians probably had many other tools besides those which 

 I have mentioned, but being composed of wood, or of some other perish- 

 able material, they have decayed. There are said to exist in some 

 localities large circular depressions in the ground, where, according to 

 old settlers, the Indians were in the habit of holding war-dances. On 

 the top of a steep blufl:' near South Table Mountain is a semicircular 

 wall of basaltic bowlders about 20 feet in length and a foot or two in 

 height, and as the bluff on which this wall is situated is in the center 

 of a large prehistoric encampment, it may have been used as a breast- 

 work for the purpose of defense. On the side of a steep hill, near Green 

 Mountain is what appears to have been an Indian road ; a path about a 

 yard in width has been made by clearing away the stones from the side 

 of the hill and placing them as a border on either side. For the greater 

 part of its course the path goes straight up and down the hill, but near 

 the bottom of the hill it takes an abrupt turn, making nearly a right 

 angle with its former course. 



