124 DANIEL WILSON ON 



beeu repeatedly recovered from the French caves ; au interesting example occurred among 

 the objects embedded in the red cave-earth of Keuts's Hole, Devonshire ; and others, of dif- 

 erent periods, usually quartzite pebbles, or nodules of flint, have been found in many 

 localities. Some of them were probably used in breaking the larger bones to extract the 

 marrow ; but the battered edges of others show their contact with harder material. 

 Similar hammer-stones occur in the Danish peat-mosses, in the Swiss lake-dwellings, in 

 sepulchral deposits, and among other remains of modern savage art. They vary also in 

 size ; and were, no doubt, applied to diverse purposes. 



The mode of fashioning the large, tongue-shaped implements and rude stone hatchets, 

 which are among the most characteristic drift implements, it can scarcely be doubted, was 

 by blows of a stone or flint hammer ; as was obviously the case with large flint or horn- 

 stone unfinished implements recovered by me from some of the numerous pits of the Flint 

 Ridge, a siliceous deposit of the Carboniferous Age, which extends through the State of 

 Ohio, from Newark to New Lexington.' At various points along the ridge, funnel-shaped 

 pits occur, varying from four or five to fifteen feet deep ; and similar traces of ancient 

 mining may be seen in other localities, as at Leavenworth, about three hundred miles 

 below Cincinnati, where the grey flint or chert abounds, of which large implements are 

 chiefly made. The sloping sides of the pits are in many cases covered with the fractured 

 flints, some of them partially shaped as if for manufacture. The work in the quarry was, 

 no doubt, the mere rough fashioning of the flint by the tool-makers, with a view to facility 

 of transport, in many cases, to distant localities. But the finer manipulation, by means of 

 which the carefully-finished arrow-heads, knives, lances, hoes, drills, scrapers, etc., were 

 manufactured, was reserved for leisurely and patient skill. Longfellow, in his Indian epic, 

 represents the Dacotah Arrow-maker busy plying his craft. It was no doubt pursued by 

 specially skilled workmen ; for considerable dexterity is needed in striking the flakes from 

 the flint core, and fashioning them into the nicely-finished edged tools and weapons to bo 

 seen in many museums. The choice of material is not limited to flint. 



" At the doorway of his wigwam 

 Sat the ancient Arrow-maker, 

 In the land of the Dacotahs, 

 Making arrow-heads of jasjier, 

 Arrow-heads of chalcedony." 



Beautifully finished arrow-heads and other smaller implements fashioned of jasper 

 chalcedony, white c|uartz, and rock-crystal, are among the prized relics of many collections. 

 The diversity of fracture in such materials must have taxed the skill of the expert work- 

 man, familiar chiefly with the regular cleavage of the obsidian, chert, or flint. But it is 

 now known that the more delicate operations in the finishing of the flint implements were 

 done by means of pressure with a horn or bone arrow-flaker ; and not by a succession of 

 blows with a chisel or hammer. The process has been repeatedly described by eye-witnesses. 

 Dr. Evans quotes more than one account of methods pursued among the Eskimo, the native 

 Mexicans, and the Shasta Indians of California. Another, and in some respects more 

 minute account of the process, as it is in use by the Wintoon Indians, is furnished by Mr. B. 



' See Prehistoric Man, 3rd Ed., i. 70, Figs. 5, C and 



