406 



NORTH AMEEICAN STONE IMPLEMENT3. 



Hon of an old-fashioned sicord deposited with the decayed bones of Ihe 

 skeleton. This tumuhis was conical in shape, abont seven feci: high, 

 and possessed a base diameter of some twenty feet. It contained only 

 Fig. 4. one skeleton, and that lay, with the articles I have 



^— ^ enumerated, at tbe bottom of the mound, and on a 

 level with the plain. The oaken hilt, most of the 

 guard, and about seven inches of the blade of the 

 sword still remained. The rest of the blade had per- 

 ished from rust. Strange to say, the oak had best 

 resisted the ' gnawing tooth of time.' This mound 

 had never been opened or in any way disturbed, ex- 

 cept by the winds and rains of the changing seasons. 

 I have no doubt but that the interment was primary, 

 and that all the articles enumerated were deposited 

 with the dead before this mound-tomb was heaped 

 above him. This, within the range of my observa- 

 tion, is an interesting and exceptional case. I am 

 persuaded that mound-building, at least upon the 

 Georgia coast, was abandoned by the natives very shortly after their 

 primal contact with the whites." 



From mound-building I turn again to North American flint imple- 

 ments. Mr. Stevens refers in his work to the absence of flint scrapers 

 in the series from the United States exhibited in the Blackmore Museum. 

 Scrapers of the European spoon-shaped type, however, are not as scarce 

 in the United States as Mr. Stevens seems to suppose. The collection 

 of the Smithsonian Institution contains a nuniber of them ; and I found 

 myself two characteristic specimens in the Kjokkenmodding at Key- 

 port, Xew Jersey, described by me in the Smithsonian report for ISGI. 

 They lay upon the shell-covered ground, a short distance from each other, 

 and were perhaps made by the same hand. In Fig. 4 I give a full-size 

 drawing of one of my specimens, both of which consist of a brown kind 

 of flint, such as probably would be called jasper by mineralogists. The 

 Fig- 5- figured specimen, it will be seen, jjossesses all 



the characteristics of a European scraper. Its 

 lower surface is formed by a single curved 

 fracture. The rounded head is somewhat 

 turned toward the right, a feature likewise ex- 

 hibited in the other specimen, which is a little 

 larger, but not quite as typical as the original 

 of Fig. 4. As the peculiar curve of the broad 

 I part is observable in both specimens, it must 

 be considered as having been produced inten- 

 tionally. Indeed, I have among my flint scrap- 

 ers from the pilework at Eobenhausen one 

 which is curved in the same direction. In fash- 

 ioning their implements in this particular manner, the Indian and the 

 ancient lake-man possibly had the same object in view. 



