76 SIE DANIEL WILSON 



are overlaid by subsequent accumulations suggests a remote era. In 1853 Mr. Sellers 

 first visited the site of one of those ancient work yards, on the northern bank of the 

 Saline River, about three miles above its junction with the Ohio. The region was then 

 covered with dense forest, with the exception of a narrow strip along the bank of the river, 

 which had been cleared in connection with recently opened coal works. But at a later date, 

 in sinking a cistern, about two hundred yards from the river bank, the excavation was made 

 through a mass of flint chips. Subsequently heavy rains, after ploughing, exposed some 

 spears and arrow points. " But it was not until the great flood of the winter of 1862 and 

 1863 that overflowed this ridge three or four feet with a rapid current, that the portion 

 under cultivation on the river bank was denuded, exposing over six acres of what at first 

 appeared to be a mass of chips or stone rubbish, but amongst it were found many ham- 

 merstones, celts, grooved axes, cores, flakes, almost innumerable scrapers and other imple- 

 ments, and many tynes from the buck or stag, all of which bore evidence of having been 

 scraped to a point. On exposure to the air they fell to pieces." The actual site of the 

 quarry appears to have been subsequently identified. " The greater number of cores, 

 scattered flakes, finished and unfinished implements, are of the chert, from a depression 

 in a ridge three miles to the south-east, where there are abundant indications of large 

 quantities having been quarried." But the same great work-yard of the ancient Mound- 

 Builders furnished evidence of other sources of supply. Mr. Sellers noted the finding " a 

 few cores of the white chert from Missouri, and the red and yellow jasper of Kentucky 

 and Tennessee," but he adds, " the flakes of these have mostly been found iu nests or small 

 caches, many of which have been exposed ; and in every case the flakes they contained 

 were more or less worked on their edges ; whereas the flakes from the neighboring chert 

 preserved their sharp edges as when split from the mass. These cache specimens with 

 their worked serrated edges would, if found singly, be classed as saws or ciitting imple- 

 ments. But here where found in mass, evidently brought from a distance, to a place 

 where harder chert of a much better character for cutting implements abounds, they tell 

 a diflFerent story." The material was better adapted for the manufucture of certain classes 

 of small implements much in demand, and the serrated edge is simply the natural result 

 of the mode of working of this species of chert and of the jasper. 



The fine-grained quartzite was also in request, especially for the manufacture of the 

 largest class of implements, including the hoes and spades, equally needed by the primi- 

 tive agriculturist, and by the navvies to whose industrious toil the vast earthworks of 

 the Ohio A^alley are due. The site of the old quartzite quarry appears to be about eight 

 miles from the banks of Saline River ; but there are many other localities scattered 

 over the region extending from southern Illinois to the Mississippi, where the same sub- 

 stitute for chert or hornstone occurs. Some of the quartzite hoes or spades measure six- 

 teen inches in length, with a breath of from six to seven inches, and evince a remarkable 

 amount of dexterity and skill iu their manufacture. Here, accordingly, it becomes appar- 

 ent that there was a time in the history of this continent, before its existence was revealed 

 to the race that now peoples the Ohio valley, when that region was the scene of busy 

 native industry, and its manufacturers quarried and wrought the chert, jasper, and 

 quartzite, and traded the products of their skill over an extensive region. But the germs 

 of an incipient native civilization were trodden out by the inroads of savage warriors 

 from the north ; and the towns and villages of the industrious community were replaced 



