136 PROCEEDINGS OF THE CANADIAN INSTITUTE. 
the hand, but must be rested against some solid substance, and flaked 
by means of an instrument, the handle of which fitted the palm like 
that of an umbrella, enabling the operator to exert a pressure against 
the substance to be chipped nearly equal to the weight of the body.” 
One result of Mr. Cushing’s experiments in arrow-making was to. 
satisfy him that the greatest difficulty was to make long narrow 
surface-flakes. Hence, contrary to all preconceived ideas, it is easier 
to form the much-prized delicately finished small arrow-heads, with 
barbs and stem, than larger and seemingly ruder implements which 
involve much surface-flaking. 
It is interesting to learn of the recovery of what was supposed to 
be the lost art of the ancient arrow-makers by a series of tentative 
experiments independently pursued by different observers’; and to 
find the newly-discovered process confirmed by the methods still in 
use by widely-scattered aboriginal tribes. So far the results of Mr. 
Cushing’s experiments agree with those of other observers ; but in 
the course of his operations he also noted this fact that the grooves 
produced by the flaking of the flint, or obsidian, all turned in one 
direction. This proved to be due to the constant use of his right 
hand. The first procedure is to strike off a suitable flake from the 
block of flint. This is then trimmed roughly with a hammer-stone 
into a leaf-shape, which is reduced in thickness by scaling off surface 
flakes with repeated blows upon the edge. Then comes the delicate 
process of finishing, pointing, and notching the arrow or lance-head 
with the bone flaker. Surface-flaking, or the thinning of the flint 
blade by the detachment of flakes running from the edge to the 
centre, is the most difficult part of the process. The method 
employed to effect this, by direct blows with a hammer stone, by 
pressure with a wood or bone flaker, or by combining the two, and 
using the bone or stone flaker as a chisel, can always be detected. 
Each method leaves its traces on the finished implement ; and in the 
extreme cases of the rudely chipped flint implements of the drift, 
and the highly finished flint daggers and axes of the Danish mosses 
and shell-heaps, the contrast is very striking. Mr. Cushing also 
notes that in flaking a large arrow or spear-head in the hand it is 
necessary to hold it alternately by the point and by the base. As 
the grasp by the base is much firmer the pressure is greater; and 
hence the flakes scale off further toward or over the centre. As 
this unavoidably happens on opposite edges, a twisted and at times. 
