112 FOSSIL MEN. 



between the languages of Eastern America and Wes- 

 tern Asia and Europe, the nature of which may in the 

 sequel engage our attention. 



Disc-hammers are in their rudest form merely flat 

 pebbles, suitable to be held in the hand, for driving 

 wedges or chisels, or for breaking stones, bones, or 

 nuts. In their more finished forms they are carefully 

 fashioned of quartzite or greenstone, with one side 

 convex and the other flat, or even slightly hollowed, 

 and the edge neatly and regularly trimmed. Stones 

 of this kind are found all over America on old Indian 

 sites, and are almost equally common in Europe; and 

 there can be little doubt from the habits of the modern 

 Indians as to their ordinary uses. They were prob- 

 ably hammers, pounders, and polishers. Held with 

 the convex side in the palm of the hand, they could 

 be used to drive wooden stakes or to split wood with 

 stone chisels, or to crack nuts or to bruise grain and 

 fruits, or to grind paint on a flat stone. With sand 

 or earth they made efficient polishers for dressing 

 skins, and held edgewise they served to trim flint 

 weapons or to crack marrow- bones. One of these 

 hammers must therefore have been an indispensable 

 utensil in every household, and a well-made one of 

 durable stone may have been an heirloom handed 

 down for generations. 



These hammers should not be confounded with the 

 stones having deep hollows in their sides, and which 

 were mortars for grinding pigments, or sockets for 

 fire-drills; nor should they be confounded with the 



