158 



PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



This specimen is unusually large, and heavy enough to have served for v.^eight- 

 ing a set-net.* The ordinary size of these sinkers is from three to five inches, 

 with a corresponding weight of from six to ten ounces. 



Fig. 2Di. 



Flo. 866. 



Fio. 256. 



Fig. 257. 



All i 

 Figs. 254-257. — Stone sinkers. Susquehanna Valley (Muucy). 



* Such heavy notched pebbles have been noticed by Dr. Abbott. "In June, 1879," he says, " while relic- 

 hunting in the Delaware Valley, with Professor F. "W. Putnam, of the Museum at Cambridge, Massachusetts, 

 the author found a very large notched pebble on the shore of the river, a short distance above the Water Gap, in 

 Monroe County, Pennsylvania, which, judging from the size and the fact of its having four notches, was used as 

 an anchor or set-weight. This example measures eight inches square, and weighs nearly five pounds. To secure 

 a net, which was placed in the stream, as gilling-nets and fykes are now set, such a weight would have been fre- 

 quently a necessity, especially where there was a swift current, as there is in the river at the point where this 

 specimen was found ; but it is evidently impossible that such a stone could have been used, as one of a hundred or 

 more, in dragging a sweep-net through the water. Aside from their weight, stones of such size would constantly 

 be caught by obstructions in the bod of the stream, and thus render the free movement of a net impracticable." — 

 Primitive Industry ; p. 241. 



