Feb, 3," 1876] 



NATURE 



271 



dull rubbing edge given to a conveniently sized pebble. 

 Such, however, is seldom or never the case, and the class 

 of implements, to which is given the above name, are as 

 marked in their several peculiarities as is any form of 

 stone implement with which we are familiar. 



Having remarked the great abundance of these relics, 

 I desire here more particularly to notice several specimens 

 which are of more than ordinary interest. The illustra- 

 tions r, 2, 3, and 4, are figures of the very smallest 

 scrapers that I have seen ; and what is more remarkable 

 than their small size is the beauty of their finish and their 

 sjTTimetry. They are made of differently coloured jasper, 

 were not found together or in the same neighbourhood, 

 showing that they had different origins, and are not ex- 



Fig. I. Fig. 2. 



amples of the fancy of some eccentric chipper of flint 

 implements, such as sometimes occur in masses of broken 

 specimens and flakes that indicate the former site of an 

 arrow-maker's labours. 



Not one of these four small scrapers appears to be 

 simply a flake, originally of this shape and subsequently 

 chipped at the scraping edge ; but the entire surfaces 

 have undoubtedly been carefully wrought, and show that 

 a small mass of the mineral has been worked to the shape 

 and finish of the specimens, as now found. A quite com- 

 mon form of scraper is the base of an arrow or spear 

 point which has been utilised by subsequently chipping 

 the fractured end, so as to give it a bevelled edge ; but 

 the specimens here figured cannot be classed with these, 

 inasmuch as there is nothing suggestive of the arrow- 

 point in their present shape, and unlike them, these four 

 specimens have the under side smooth and sUghtly con- 

 cave, a feature not found in the " made over " arrow- 

 heads. 



Having seen that so much care was expended on these 

 small scrapers, it is quite certain that these implements 

 were put to some important use, but exactly what, it is diffi- 

 cult to determine. Certainly, in the dressing of the skins 

 of our larger mammals they could be of no use, and of 

 but little even when the skins of the smallest, such as 

 squirrels, were used, which was probably seldom the case, 

 as the [larger quadrupeds were as easily obtained. The 



Fig. -x. 



Fig. 



skins of birds, if used as ornaments, would not need 

 scraping to make them pliable ; and I can only suggest 

 that from the fact of having found traces of bone beads, 

 in graves, made from sections of the long bones of 

 wading birds, I have thought it probable that these small 

 scrapers were used in rounding off the ends of such bone 

 beads ; and they might also have been used in the shap- 

 ing and sharpening of the beautiful bone fish-hooks our 

 aborigines were accustomed to make. Such uses would, 

 t)f course, make the name " skin-scraper " inappropriate, 

 as I am quite disposed to think it is. 



Fig. 5 represents a very perfect specimen of the spoon- 

 shaped scrapers, such as are common in Europe, and by 

 no means rare in the United States. Those found here, 

 as a rule, are not so symmetrical as the specimen figured, 

 "and do not have the " bowl " or concave portion of the 



spoon so decidedly marked. Our New Jersey specimens 

 have this under- surface generally plain, or but slightly 

 concave ; and uniform with the stem or handle of the 

 implement. In the specimen figured this is not the case, 

 and the spoon-shape is so pronounced as to suggest that 

 it is a veritable spoon. 



Fig. 5 has been chipp>ed from a very pretty agate 

 pebble, such as occur in the gravelly bed of the upper 

 waters of the Delaware River ; and it is an interesting 



FfG. s. 



fact connected with this class of relics, that the majority 

 are made of jasper, agate, and quartz, minerals the most 

 difficult to shape, and certainly no better adapted to the 

 ordinary uses of these implements— that of scraping the 

 fat from skins. 



One word in conclusion. Mr. C. C. Jones, jun., in his 

 work on the "Antiquities of the Southern Indians," writes, 

 under the head of "Scrapers" that "the spoon-shaped 

 scraper of France and Switzerland is more pronounced in 

 form and purpose than any implement of like character it 

 has been my good fortune to find among the relics of the 

 southern tribes." 



It is curious that so much variation in the forms of 

 their stone implements should exist in tribes nearly 

 related, and but a few hundred miles apart. Judging 

 from the specimens figured by the author quoted, scrapers 

 were quite simple in their shape and finish ; which, as 

 we have seen, is the opposite of what we find in New 

 Jersey, where as great a variety in shapes and sizes occur 

 as exist in the various patterns of arrow-points. * 



Charles C. Abbott 



Trenton, New Jersey 



THE RECENT BUTTER CASE 



A S the case in connection with the Adulteration Act 

 -^~*- which we discussed in a leading article last week 

 is of considerable importance, both from a scientific 

 and a public point of view, we think it well to put the facts 

 before our readers. 



The following summary of the analytical results de- 

 tailed in Court by the different chemists has been supplied 

 us from a verbatim report of the proceedings before the 

 magistrate at Southwark Police Court. 



These results were given after the magistrate's decision 

 had been delivered. They were entirely informal, and 

 took the shape of a discussion, in which everyone ap- 

 peared to act as his own counsel, and no attempt was 

 made to establish or trace the identity of the samples. 



• As authority for appl>-ing the term " scraper " to implements similar to 

 Fig- 5, permit me to quote the late Prof. Jeffries Wyman (" Fifth Annual 

 Report of Peabody Museum," 1S72, p. 27,'. He writes, •' The term scraper 

 is applied to some of the implements just referred to (a collection from the 

 author), because of their close resemblance to such as bear the same name 

 from the Danish collections belonging to the Museum. They are character- 

 ised_ by having a circular or semi-circuiar flattened head, with a short pro- 

 jection which might serve as a handle, or for the purpose of attaching one. 

 They differ from the Danish implements chiefly in their much smaller size," 



