DOUBLE-POINTED BONE IMPLEMENTS. 



119 



middle would present a somewhat flattened oval. I am inclined to rco-avd this 

 specimen as a ceremonial weapon in which the usual perforation for the reception 

 of a handle is replaced by a grooA^e. It weighs three ounces and a half. 



Fig. 173. — ^Double-pointed grooved stone implement. Pennsylvania. (6627). 



Straight bone rods tapering toward both ends are not wanting in the archfe- 

 ological division of the National Museum. They were chiefly obtained in the 

 course of explorations of the Californian Santa Barbara group of islands and 

 their neighborhood, undertaken in the interest of the United States National 

 Museum by Messrs. Paul Schumacher and Stephen Bowers. These explorations 

 extended over the islands of San Miguel, Santa Cruz, San Nicolas, and Santa 

 Catalina, and various points on the main-land, embraced in the counties of 

 San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara. A place called Dos Pueblos in the last- 

 named district has furnished many remarkable objects.* 



Figs. 174, 175, and 176, on page 120, represent specimens of pointed bone rods 

 found by Mr. Bowers on Santa Cruz Island ; the original of Fig. 177 was obtained 

 by him on Santa Rosa Island. Some of the specimens on exhibition in the National 

 Museum show traces of asphaltum in the middle. They are of a somewhat 

 compressed form and generally well made, and their number in the Museum is 

 sufficient to form a class. If they were grooved or notched in the middle, as 

 shown in Fig. 2 on page 13, I would have little doubt as to their use as bait- 

 holders, though the grooves or notches are not absolutely necessary features. As 



* The relics were fcmnd in graves as well as on the surface, and while many of them are evidently very old, 

 others betoken a more recent origin, and some of the latter have occurred in association with articles of European 

 manufacture, such as iron blades, objects of brass, beads of glass and enamel, etc., proving that they are referable 

 to the natives whom the whites found in possession of the islands and the neighboring coast. The islands have 

 been totally vacated by the Indians, the last of whom, a few in number, were removed, nearly fifty years ago, to 

 the Santa Barbara Mission. 



Accounts of the explorations were published by Dr. H. C. Yarrow and Mr. Paul Schumacher, and more than 

 half of Vol. VII of the " United States Geographical Surveys West of the One Hundredth Meridian, in charge 

 of First Lieutenant George M. Wheeler" (Washington, 1879), is devoted to a minute description of the locali- 

 ties and the objects there obtained. 



