CHAPTER XIII. 



IMPLEMENTS OF STONE, ETC. 



In the absence of a knowledge of the metals, the ingenuity of man contrives to 

 fashion from the different varieties of stone, from the tusks and bones of animals, 

 and the harder kinds of wood, such rude implements as his necessities demand, 

 and such ornaments as his fancy suggests. And even among nations who have a 

 limited knowledge of the metals, we find these characteristic implements of a ruder 

 state still adhered to. In Mexico and Peru, where the use of most of the metals, 

 except iron, was well understood, the stone axe and flint-tipped arrow and lance 

 were in common use, at the period of the discovery. The early explorers found 

 all the American nations, from the squalid Esquimaux, who struck the morse with a 

 lance pointed with its own tusks, to the haughty Aztec, rivalling in his barbaric 

 splendor the magnificence of the East, in possession of them. We are not sur- 

 prised, therefore, at their occurrence in the mounds. We find them with the original 

 and with the recent deposits, and the plough turns them up to light on every hand. 

 And so striking is the resemblance between them all, that we are almost ready to 

 conclude they were the productions of the same people. This conclusion would be 

 irresistible, did we not know that the wants of man have ever been the same, and 

 have always suggested like forms to his implements, and similar modes of using 

 them. The polished instrument with which the pioneer of civilization prostrates 

 the forest, has its type in the stone axe of the Indian which his plough the next 

 day exposes to his curious gaze. In the barrows of Denmark and Siberia, in the 

 tumuli on the plains of Marathon, and even under the shadow of the pyramids 

 themselves, the explorer finds relics, almost identical with those disclosed from the 

 mounds, and closely resembling each other in material, form,, and workmanship. 

 We have consequently little whereby to distinguish the remains of the mound- 

 builders, so far as their mere implements of stone are concerned, except the 

 position in which they are found, and the not entirely imaginary superiority of 

 their workmanship, from those of the succeeding races. We have, however, in 

 the diflerent varieties of stone of which they are composed, the evidences of a 

 more extended intercourse than we are justified in ascribing to the more recent 

 tribes. 



The articles composed of stone and bone have a great variety of forms, which 

 were probably suggested by the purposes for which they were designed. They 

 will be classified, so far as their purposes seem apparent. 



