THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 



453 



etc. ; certain articles of gold, silver, pewter, zinc, tin. Articles of 

 fabric of European origin are sometimes found in graves, preserved 

 by contact with copper or copper salts. 



Articles made by Europeans, while interesting in a general way, 

 have little value in assisting our understanding of aboriginal culture. 

 For this reason we have not described the numerous articles and 

 materials of European origin found on historic Indian sites. They 

 have little bearing on archeology save to mark the presence of the 

 white man and to point out the beginning of the decay of native 

 material culture. 



Consult Beauchamp, Metallic Ornaments, Metallic Implements of 

 the New York Indians, Bulletins of the N-. Y. State Museum; 

 Parker, Origin of Iroquois Silversmithing, American Antho- 

 pologist, Vol. XII, No. 3. 



Tubes, stone. There are several types of stone tubes found in 

 New York. One type is a short flattened tube with rather thick 

 walls and drilled with a uniform hole throughout. Some specimens 



Fig. 67 Slate tube from Randolph, Cattaraugus county 



look much like a bicycle handle grip with one end smaller than the 

 other. A second type is cigar-shaped and longer than the former. 

 These have flaring mouths, reamed out, leaving thin lips. The hole 

 at the smaller end is much smaller than any other part of the tube, 

 suggesting that this type was a smoking pipe. The third form is a 

 nearly uniform tube with a reamed out orifice at one end and an out- 

 ward flaring flat end pierced with a small hole at the other. 



The cylindrical cavity is large and the walls of the tube thin, so 

 thin, in fact, that many have collapsed in places due to weathering 

 and the natural rotting of the stone. A few of this type were made 

 of a stone that would take a high polish, but most of them are of 

 dull lime or sandstone. Tubes are comparatively rare in New York. 

 They have been found on the surface and in graves, particularly, 

 stone box graves. Their range in this State is coextensive with the 

 bird stone and gorget. 



