572 REPORT OF NATIONAL MUSEUM, 1897. 



aucient pits from which this i)ipestoiie lias been taken extend for a 

 distance of three-quarters of a mile, the older pits varying- from -0 to 

 40 feet in width and from 4 to 10 feet deep, almost all of them now 

 being' partly tilled witli water. The more recent pits are somewhat 

 deeper, owing to their not having had time to fill in from the effects of 

 seasonal changes. The dumps all over the edges of this ledge where 

 refuse material has been thrown are from IS inches to 4 feet high. The 

 l)its may be numbered by the hundreds. Upon removing the soil in 

 many of them Professor Holmes found notched stone sledges of <|uartz- 

 ite pebble and numberless siiheroidal hand-chipping hammers used in 

 the quarrying and dressing process through which the material went 

 to make it suitable for final dressing. Tbe quarries are still visited by 

 the Sioux, who annually travel 200 miles or more from their reserva- 

 tion to obtain the material to make into pipes. In one of the ancient 

 pits Professor Holmes found indications of the burial of horses and 

 cattle, and near the quarries are several low burial mounds from 20 to 

 40 or more feet in diameter, and scattered near the pits are numerous 

 lodge sites, indicated by circular or oblong depressions.' 



While little appears to be positively known concerning the length of 

 time during which the (quarries have been worked, there can be little 

 doubt that they have been in use from a period prior to the advent of 

 the French on the IMississippi. The locality of these quarries is in the 

 territory dominated by the Sioux, and they alone appear from the earli- 

 est times to have had control of the "pipestone" of which the typical 

 Sioux pipe is yet made, and little reliance can be placed in the state- 

 ment of its ever having been a neutral site. Large blocks of the quartz 

 have been sledged olf and thrown upon the various dumps along the 

 outcrop, leaving the catliuite, where it is of sufficient density, to be 

 worked into any necessary objects of ornament. There are some large 

 bowlders in the immediate vicinity of the quarries, and upon many of 

 them are visible aboriginal paintings and drawings of both animate 

 and inanimate figures. 



Catliuite has by some writers been said to be soft when taken from 

 the quarries and to become harder on exposure to the atmosphere; but 

 the writer's experience in working this stone would indicate that the 

 difference in working fresh or dry stone is insignificant, as pieces 

 which have dried for years are yet nearly as soft as commercial soap- 

 stone. Catliuite is quite a soft indurated clay, slightly harder than 

 soapstone; easily cut with a steel knife, or scraped by means of sharj)- 

 edged tools of stone or shell, or ground by stone or sand into any 

 desired shape; and by pecking with a stone hammer this material may 

 be formed with perfect ease into any shape, provided care be taken not 

 to strike the blow in the plane of its lamination, along which the cleav- 

 age is decidedly pronounced, and its thin lamellar structure becomes 

 distinct and apt to fracture in thin sheets. At any angle to this cleav- 

 age j)lane, however, the stone resists quite severe blows of the hammer 



'W. H. Hohnes, Proceedings, Anieriojiii Association for tho Advancement of Science, 

 1892, XLI, p. 277. 



