ANCHOR STONES. • 687 



(Plate III). The groove around it is not completed, but cut suffi- 

 ciently deep to securely hold the anchor line. It is of the same yellow, 

 massive sandstone from which the two last-described anchors were 

 wrought. It weighs 43 pounds; is 12 inches in length, lOi inches iu 

 width, and 6 in thickness. This stone, like Fig. 1, had served in more 

 than one capacity. Though in general contour each side approaches 

 regular convexity, there is in the middle of each surface a slight, sau- 

 cer like depression worn on the side shown in the cut, perfectly smooth; 

 but on the reverse side the hollow is rough and incomplete. The stone 

 bears all over, excepting in the front depression, the pitting marks of 

 the sharp-pointed flints used in its reduction. 



The extended researches of Dr. Eau throughout both hemispheres* 

 in the arts and artifices employed by primitive i)eoples for catching 

 fish, with all the facilities aflbrded him by the Smithsonian Institution 

 and his mastery of several languages, have brought to light a very 

 limited number of wrought stones designed to serve especially as boat 

 anchors. The conception of making an anchor of a rock was as natural 

 to savages unacquainted with metals as was the expediency of making 

 weapons and tools of stone ; but as the rocks in their natural condition 

 were the most efficient as anchors, it is difficult to comprehend why so 

 much labor was expended in cutting any of them to prescribed patterns 

 for this service. The sculptured rounded anchor stones perhaps were 

 port of the equipment of bark canoes, so thin and fragile as to be en- 

 dangered by carrying rough stones heavy enough to answer as safe 

 anchors ; hence cutting down projecting points and angles became 

 necessary as a j)recautionary measure to guard against accidental scut- 

 tling of the craft. If this explanatory suggestion is rejected as improb- 

 able or inadequate, we must then ascribe the exceptional flint-chiseled 

 anchor stones to the esthetic element inherent in the Indian. In point 

 of age there is little doubt that these interesting relics ante-date the ad- 

 vent of Europeans. They are certainly the product of Indian art, for 

 the negative reason, if no other, that white men had no incentive and 

 were under no necessity for wasting so much useless labor on such ob- 

 jects. " Stones are still employed," remarks Dr. Rau.t " instead of an- 

 chors for small craft in Europe as well as in Xorth America, and prob- 

 ably all over the world. With regard to North American anchor stones, 

 therefore, some discrimination is required to discover whether an object 

 of this class is a relic of the former inhabitants or of their white suc- 

 cessors, and there may be cases in which a proper distinction becomes 

 well-nigh impossible. Our fishermen on the great lakes and rivers al- 

 most universally use stones in lieu of anchors." 



In this respect there can however be no uncertainty' as to the an- 

 tiquity of my first specimen. Fig. 1. Its inhumation with the body of 

 the fishermen who probably made and used it, and its association in 

 the mound tumulus with flint arrow i)oiuts, are sufficiently conclusive. 



• See Prehistoric Fishing, Washington, 1884. 

 t Prehistoric Fishing, p. 195, 



