SINKEBS. 167 



Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Utah, California, Oregon, and the Aleutian Islands. 

 According to Dr. C. C. Abbott, they occur in New Jersey by the hundreds in the 

 valley of every creek and along the river-shores. " In the summer of 1878," 

 he says, " a series of these notched pebbles was found in the wasting northern 

 shore of Crosswick's Creek, about two miles from its mouth, at Bordentown, 

 New Jersey. They were in an irregular heap, in some instances one just above 

 the other, but in contact. They were twenty-two inches below the surface of the 

 meadow, which is composed of a fine, sandy mud, that has been slowly accumu- 

 lating at this point for centuries. There were seventy-three in the series, and 

 supposing them to have been placed at a distance of a foot apart, they would 

 have supplied a net just long enough to stretch across the creek at this point."* 



1 



FIG. 253. Modern stone sinker. Dunkirk. 



About ten years ago, a large series of such sinkers was sent to me by Mr. 

 J. M. M. Gernerd, who had collected them on both banks of the Susquehanna 

 River, near his place of residence, the town of Muncy, in Lycoming County, 

 Pennsylvania. 



Figs. 254 to 257, on the following page, illustrate a group of such objects. 

 The smallest (Fig. 257) measures two inches in its longer diameter, and weighs 

 only one ounce ; but I have one weighing not more than half an ounce. A 

 number of these small modified pebbles may have served to weight the bottom- 

 line of a net. Some of them, perhaps, were employed as sinkers in connection 

 with hook and line. 



My largest specimen, represented in Fig. 258 (on page 159), is a flat stone 

 of irregular outline, eight inches wide across the broadest part, and one inch and 

 three-eighths thick in the middle. It weighs two pounds and fourteen ounces. 



* Abbott : Primitive Industry ; p. 238. 



