878 



PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 



from the neighborhood chert preserved their sharp edges as wheu split 

 from the mass. These cache specimens with their worked serrated 

 edges would, if found singly, be classed as saws or cutting implements. 

 But here, where found in mass, evidently brought from a distance, to 

 a place where harder chert of a much better character for cutting im- 

 plements abound, they tell a different story. No two are exactly alike, 

 yet the work ou all is of the same character, and evidently done for the 

 same object. To one discovering that object, they tell the story clearly, 

 as well as the mode of working, written on stone, and better than it can 

 now be told either by writing or illustrations. 



To make myself understood I must have recourse to sketches, and 

 then will most probably fail to make it as clear to the general reader 

 as these stone flakes do to me. Let us first look at a flake as detached 

 from the mass, aud study its nature, presuming it to have been flaked 

 from a stone that by a hammer stroke would break with a fine-grain 

 couchoidal fracture. Fig. 3 is a plan view of the outer or high side 



(Half size.) 



Fig. 4. 



Fig. 5. 



of an ordinary flake intended for a spear or arrow-head ; the shape 

 of this high side depending on the lines of fracture of the previous flak- 

 ing. Fig. 4 is a section through the center of the flake on the dotted 

 line a a', showing its flat side aud sliarp edges. Fig. 5 an edge view, 

 showing at its upper end the angle of the recess formed, and against 

 which the point of the flaker had been pressed to throw off' the flake ; 

 dotted lines in the cross-section Fig. 4 show the form of an arrow-head 

 on the line a a' that the flake will work into. The form of the head is 

 given by dotted lines in Fig. 3. From these it will be seen that the por- 

 tion of the flake to be chipped away (and also the greatest portion of 

 the chipping to be done) is from the flat side. 



The man who makes the flake can at a glance see what it will best 

 produce. His flakes are for transportation ; bulk and weight are seri- 

 ous considerations. His practical eye tells him how to reduce them into 

 the best merchantable form ; and the greater number of the flakes found 

 in the caches alluded to have been so worked, and always from the flat 

 side of the flake. This could not be accidental. By referring to the axis 

 line in section Fig. 4, the amount of chipping from the flat side that 



