400 NOETH AMERICAN STONE IMPLEMENTS. 



complete oue. I must admit tbat my drawing is not a very good one. 

 It gives tbe object a more definite character than it really possesses, the 

 chipping appearing in the representation far less superficial than it is 

 in the original, which, indeed, has such a shape that it could easily be 

 reduced to a smaller size by blows aimed at its circumference. I have 

 myself scaled off large flat flakes from similarly-shaped pieces of flint, 

 using a small iron hammer and directing my blows against the edge, 

 and have thus become convinced that the further working of objects 

 like that in question could offer no serious difiiculties to a practised 

 flint-chipper. My collection, moreover, contains several smaller flint 

 objects of similar shape, which are undoubtedly the rudiments of arrow 

 and spear-heads, and I may add that I obtained a few from places where 

 the manufacture of such weapons was carried on. 



Yet the most important de[»osit of flint implements resembling cer- 

 tain types of the European drift, is that discovered by Messrs. Squier 

 and Davis during their researches in Ohio. They have described this 

 interesting find in the "Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," 

 and a resume of their account was given by me in the Smithsonian re- 

 port for 18G8, (p. 404.) The implements in question, I stated, occurred 

 in one of the so-called sacrificial mounds of Clark's Work, on i^orth 

 Fork of Paint Creek, Eoss County, Ohio. This flat, but very broad 

 mound contained, instead of the hearth usually found in this class of 

 earth- structures, an enormous number of flint discs, standing on their 

 edges and arranged in two layers, one above the other, at the bottom of 

 the mound. The whole extent of these layers has not been ascertained, 

 but an excavation six feet long and four broad disclosed upward of six 

 hundred of those discs, rudely blocked out of a superior kind of dark 

 flint. I had occasion to examine the specimens from this mound, M'hich 

 were formerly in the collection of Dr. Davis, and have now in my col- 

 lection a number that belonged to the same deposit. They are either 

 roundish, oval, or heart-shaped, and of various sizes, but on an average 

 six inches long, four inches wide, and from three-quarters to an inch in 

 thickness. These flint discs are believed to have been buried as a re- 

 ligious ofl:eriug, and the peculiar structure of the mound which inclosed 

 them rather favors this opinion, while their enormous number, on the 

 other hand, aflords some probability to the view that they constituted a 

 depot or magazine. Many of them are clumsy, and roughly chipped 

 around their edges; and hence it has been suggested that they are no 

 finished implements, but merely rudimentary forms, destined to receive 

 more symmetry of outline by subsequent labor. Many of the discs un- 

 der notice bear a striking resemblance to the flint "hatchets" discovered 

 by Boucher de Perthes and Dr. Eigollot in the diluvial gravels of the 

 valley of the Somme, in Northern France. The similarity in form, how- 

 ever, is the only analogy that can be claimed for the rude flint articles 

 of both continents, considering that they occurred under totally differ- 

 ent circumstances. The drift implements of Europe represent the most 

 primitive attempts of man in the art of working stone, while the Ohio 



