AMERICAN MUSEUMS 53 



most varied purposes, and the occupation of the country 

 by Indian tribes down to comparatively recent times, is 

 the obvious cause of the extreme abundance of stone 

 weapons and implements all over the country. As indica- 

 tions of this abundance, the case of Dr. Abbott's farm at 

 Trenton, New Jersey, may be mentioned. This gentleman 

 has obtained, on a very limited area, about twenty thousand 

 stone implements and several hundreds of associated 

 objects made of bone, clay, and copper, besides numerous 

 pipes and carved stone ornaments. In a small field on 

 the banks of the Potomac, near Washington, arrow-heads 

 of quartz and quartzite have been collected for many 

 years, and are sometimes still so abundant that hundreds 

 may be found in a few days. This is on the site of an 

 Indian settlement abandoned about two hundred years 

 ago. In California, the large stone mortars used for 

 pounding the acorns, which seem always to have formed 

 the food of the indigenes, are scattered over the country 

 by thousands ; while the beautiful little arrow-heads of 

 jasper and chalcedony found abundantly in some districts, 

 are systematically collected to be set in gold and used as 

 ornamental jewellery. 



Next in interest and extent to the stone weapons and 

 implements are the articles of pottery found abundantly 

 in the various classes of mounds and sites of villages. 

 These consist chiefly of cooking vessels, water jars, drinking 

 cups, and mortuary urns, extremely varied in form, size, 

 and ornamentation, and often exhibiting a considerable 

 amount of artistic skill. In a group of mounds in New 

 Madrid, in Missouri, over a hundred such vessels were 

 found, exhibiting about thirty distinct types of form, from 

 flat dishes to long-necked jars, vessels with or without 

 handles or feet, and with the handles greatly varied in 

 number, form, and position. Many of these are moulded 

 above into the form of human heads or busts, and some 

 of them are in strange attitudes, recalling the fantastic 

 Peruvian pottery. Similar pottery has been found in the 

 mounds of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, as well as in 

 the curious stone graves found extensively in the Southern 

 States ; but their various peculiarities can only be under- 



