AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS 



NORTH AMERICAN STONE PERIOD. 



BY CHAS. RAU, OF NEW YORK. 



My collectiou of Indian stone implements contains a number of specimens 

 remarkable alike for large size and superior workmanship, which, to all appear- 

 ance, have been used for agricultural purposes by the aborigines of this country; 

 and, as no description of similar relics has appeared as yet in any modern Avork 

 on North American ethnology or antiquities, a notice thereof might be acceptable 

 to all who take an interest in the former condition of the aboriginal inhabitants 

 of North America. 



The implements in question are of two distinct forms, represented in the wood- 

 cuts, figures 1 and 2, and may be classified, from their shape and probable 

 application, as shovels and hoes. The material from which they arc chipped, 

 and which I never succeeded in discovering in sitti, is invariably a very hard 

 flint of a bluish, gray, or brownish color, and a slightly conchoidal fracture, and 

 quite unlike that variety of flint of which the arrow and spear heads occurring 

 in the west are usually made. 



• Fig. 1. Fig. 2. 



Fig. 1 represents one of the shovels in my possession. Like all other speci- 

 mens of this kind, it is an oval plate, flat on one side and slightly convex on the 

 other, the outline forming a sharp edge. It measures above a foot in length, a 

 little more than five inches in its greatest breadth, and is about three-quarters 

 of an inch thick along the longitudinal diameter. The workmanship exhibits 

 an admirable degree of skill. Besides the specimen just described, which was 

 discovered in a field near Belleville, St. Clair county, Illinois, I possess two 

 others of similar shape and workmanship. The one of these last named I found 

 myself within sight of the celebrated Cahokia temple-mound in Illinois, in the 

 construction of which it may have assisted centuries ago ; the other was dug up 

 in 1861 in St. Louis, while earthworks Avcre built by order of General Fremont 

 for the protection of the city against an apprehended attack of the southern 

 secessionists. When attached to solid handles, these stone plates certainly con- 

 stituted very efficient digging implements. 



Fio-. 2 illustrates the shape of a hoe. This specimen, which was obtanied 

 fromli burial-mound near Illinoistown, opposite St. Louis, is seven and a half 

 inches long, nearly six inches wide, and about half an inch thick in the middle; 

 the round part is worked into a sharp edge. Another specimen of my coUec- 



