192 PREHISTORIC FISHING. 



long, and made of one piece of oak, has lost one-half of its blade ; but a restora- 

 tion in dotted lines has been attempted. The relic belongs to Mr. looker, to 

 whom I am indebted for the description and a photograph, after which the illus- 

 tration was made. 



I am not aware that other paddles have been found under similar circum- 

 stances in this country. 



Anchor -stones. Many years ago, while spending some days at Nanuet, a 

 post-village in Rockland County, New York, I saw in a store, kept by a man 

 who was in a small way a collector of aboriginal relics, two boulders of good 

 size, each encircled by a groove around the middle. I had not seen such stones 

 before, but concluded at once that they had served as anchors, not knowing 

 any other use to which they could have been applied. These objects, I believe, 

 are now generally considered as weights which were attached to strong lines 

 (probably thongs) of the proper length, and used as primitive anchors to moor 

 canoes to the shores, or to arrest, if need required, their drifting in mid-water. 

 Yet smaller stones of this kind, too heavy for net-sinkers, may have been 

 employed as weights to keep set-nets in place. 



" Large angular pebbles or boulders, with deep encircling grooves," says 

 Dr. Abbott, " have been frequently found in the Delaware River as well as in 

 many of the larger creeks flowing into it. These grooved boulders, I believe, 

 were used as anchoring-stones. 



" One of these so-called anchors, found in the bed of Crosswick's Creek, near 

 Bordentown, New Jersey, is a compact sandstone boulder, nearly a cube in shape, 

 and weighs forty pounds. The groove divides the stone into equal parts, is 

 evenly worked, and measures uniformly one inch in width and three-fourths of 

 an inch in depth. 



" This specimen was found embedded in mud, at a depth of nearly three 

 feet from the present surface. Near it were found a dozen notched pebbles, a 

 grooved stone axe, and several fragments of pottery. 



" The circumstances under which this grooved boulder was found clearly 

 indicate that it was used as an anchor ; and its being associated with a small 

 series of notched pebbles is as interesting as it is suggestive. Unlike the large 

 notched pebbles referred to from the Water Gap,* this specimen could not have 

 been used as an attachment to a net, but at once suggests the use of a boat ; and 

 as we know that these boats were in almost daily use, it is not probable that 

 they were always drawn from the water when not in use."f 



Two remarkable anchor-stones were sent, in 1882, to the National Museum 



. * See note on p. 158 of this publication, 

 t Abbott : Primitive Industry ; p. 242, etc. 



