414 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



apply ecpially to every State certainly as far north as Connecticut. 

 The steatite has been ev^ery where woiked by natives to furnish culinary 

 vessels, and we see that in this, as in all other stones, the native 

 thoroughly appreciated the varying texture of minerals and selected 

 only those best suited to his requirements. The advent of the white 

 man caused an immediate revolution in aboriginal art. AVherever Ids 

 wares were distributed, skins were traded for -blankets, and, as School- 

 craft well says, "Europeans gave them iron and brass for the rude clay 

 pots; steel for wooden traps; gunpowder, the ritie, and guns for bows 

 and arrows; fire steels and flints for the painful ])rocess of percussion; 

 the White Chapel for the bone needle; the steel awl for the aishkim or 

 tip of the deer's horn, and, in fine, a style of arts so superior to all the 

 aboriginal modes of meeting the common wants of life that the latter 

 fell into disuse as soon as the Eurojtean fiibrics could be obtained."' 



Think of the immeasurable superiority of a tool of irou or steel over 

 the best and sharpest of those of stone. The one implement cut wood 

 or soapstoue where the other may be said only to have bruised it. The 

 metal point, as a perforater or drill, and the rasp must have been very 

 attractive tools to people who had theretofore known only the stone or 

 wood drill-point used with sand, or the grinding stone. If we examine 

 any collection of ancient American pipes the extreme care with which 

 they have been finished is noticeable, though it is seldom that a polish 

 of any kind is met with in any implements of aboriginal art north of 

 Mexico. Compare, however, a general collection of stone implements 

 and the difference of surface wear is noticeable, and we see that not 

 only have rubbing stones varied according to the work required of 

 them, but a strong suspicion is aroused that the sands and smoothing 

 material were more highly appreciated than would be suspected by a 

 casual observer. If one will use sand to smooth a stone surface he 

 will quickly ai)preciate that sands vary enormously in their cutting 

 properties. IMiny shows that this was appreciated in his day, for he 

 discusses the relative merits of " the sand of Ethiopia" and "of India," 

 while for polishing marble he discusses the properties of "Indian sand 

 calcined," "the sand of Naxos," and that of Coptos, generally known 

 as " Egyptian sand;" " and more recently," he says, " a stone has been 

 discovered in a creek of the Adriatic Sea that is equally efticacious for 

 this i)uri)ose. Thebaic stone is considered well adapted, as also porous 

 stone, or pumice i)owdered fine."^ 



Fig. 45 is one of the earliest representations of the American pipe, 

 showing a separate stem, drawn after an illustration of De Bry, in 

 Brevis Narratio.' The woman is represented as furnishing the man 



' North Ameiican Indian Tribes, Pt. -t, p. 142. 



2The Naturiil History of Pliny,]). .32fi, translated by .John Bostork and H. S. Kiley, 

 London, ISGfi, Bohn edition. 



•'Brevis Is'arratio, Book II, plate xx, Frauklort, 1591, publislied by Jacob Le 

 Moyne. 



