PREHISTORIC ART. 



433 



flint chipping. Its length is 6f inches, width 21 inches, thickness fg 

 inch. 



Fig. 85 is from a mound near Naples, Illinois, collected by Col. J. G. 

 Henderson. It is of the brown pyromachic flint. It is one of the 

 superior specimens of art in flint chipping; it is leaf shaped, though 

 one end is rounded while the other is pointed; is 7^ inches in length, 

 2^ inches in width, and i inch in thick- 

 ness. There are few specimens to be 

 seen better representing fine art in 

 flint chipping than does this. The 

 artist who made it manifests his 

 ability at every step. He shows rhat 

 he can embody any design of fantasy 

 or improvisation in the way of flin 

 chipping which his imagination sug- 

 gested. This art work is not simply 

 the chipping of flint by which the ob- 

 ject is reduced in its proportions to a 

 given standard, but the artist has 

 been able to accomplish that end by 

 (•hi])ping the flint in any way he de- 

 sired. It is not in the making of a 

 single flake that he shows his excel- 

 lence, but rather that lie should have 

 been able to repeat them with exacti- 

 tude as many times as he might wish. 

 The flakes have been stricken from 

 each edge toward the center. This 

 has made the flakes to be about an 

 inch long. There are about eleven of 

 them in 6 inches of space, making- 

 each one slightly over half an inch 

 wide. They are extremely thin, one 

 might say "as thin as pai)er," but 

 they are really about as thick as a 

 sheet of tin. So we have flakes an 

 inch long, half an inch wide, and thin as tin sheets, that have been 

 struck off consecutively, each one exactly like the other, to the num- 

 ber of forty-four, without a single miss-stroke or failure. 



The foregoing specimen of fine art is worthy all praise for its excel- 

 lence in flint chipping, but the next (fig. 86) is a finer specimen of art, 

 more difficult to make, and Avorthy a higher admiration. It comes 

 from the same mound as did the former and was collected by the same 

 gentleman. It is not so large, being only 3^ inches long, 1-^ wide, and 

 ^ inch thick. It is of the same brown pyromachic flint as the former, 

 but has a finer patina. The chipping being described, its excellence 

 NAT Mva 90—^28 



SPEARHEAD, 



The finest pieci 



No. 43133, U.S.N.M 



1^ 

 Fig. 80. 



STEMMED, SHOULDERED, 

 BARBED, CLASS C. 



Naples, Illinois. 



of flint chipping In the Museun 



Natural siz 



