MISCELLANEOUS PAPEES RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. 565 



Stone, of grayish color streaked with white: a flinty formation occurring 

 in all lead-bearing strata of Illinois, and identical with the cherty nodules 

 and seams very common in the sub-carboniferous outcrops of the u])per 

 Mississippi and southwest Missouri. They had been buried new, show- 

 ing no marks of having been used, and their peculiar style of workman- 

 shi}) and similarity of design leave but little doubt that they are the 

 juoduct of the same artisan. The exceptional one in the deposit is a 

 well-proi)ortioned and perfect spear i>oint, nearly 3 inches in length, 

 neatly chipped from opaque, milk-white flint, strongly contrasting in 

 material, shape, and finish with the others, and evidently manufactured 

 by some other hand, perhaps in a diiferent and remote workshop. 



Fourteen of the lot are of the laurel leaf or lanceolate pattern, pointed 

 at one end and rounded at the other, with edges equally curved from 

 base to point, averaging three-eighths of an inch in thickness in the mid- 



FlG. 1. 



<dle and evenly chipped to a cutting edge all around. They are uniform 

 in shape, but differ in size; the smallest measuring 2^ inches in length 

 by 1^ inch in width at the center; and the largest one is 6 inches long 

 and nearly 2 inches wide. These fourteen are of a type quite common in 

 all ])arts of the Mississippi Valley, and are supposed to have been used 

 as Icnives or ordinary cutting tools. In our collection are six of these 

 su])i)osed knives, taken a few years ago from a deposit of over four hun- 

 dred in West Virginia, and very similar in material, pattern, and di- 

 mensions to the fourteen now before me. 



Fig. 



The remaining seventeen are shaped alike, but also difler in size aa 

 the first do, and are of the same average thickness. Thej' too are sharp 

 pointed at one end, but in outline from base to point their si<les are uu- 



