22 STONE IMPLEMENTS [etm.axsIS 



iicquired in one section were carried into iuiotlier, {riving ri.se to inucli 

 variety in the materials employed by a single peoj)le or assembled in a 

 given i)lace. This complexity was also increased to some extent by 

 trade, and no donbt by the nndeitaking of loTig Jonrncys for tlie 

 purpose of securing desired materials. Transportation was contined 

 mainly to the smaller and more laboriously finished articles of use. 

 Pnsha]ied ra'.v materials were not extensively transported, and the 

 large body of the heavier tools and utensils made where material was 

 plentiful were deserted when the locality was abandoned. 



The peculiarities of the materials procurable in the tidewater region 

 are very marked. The geologic formations found within this area 

 incbule only limited portions of the crystalline or older sedimentary 

 rocks, but are derived from them by erosive forces and consist of 

 fragmental deposits, such as sands, clays, gravels, and beds of bowl- 

 ders. The great rivers of Mesozoic and Cenozoic times swept down 

 from the highlands, bearing fragments of all varieties of rocks and 

 depositing them in beds along the margin of the sea. These trans- 

 ported fragments were, when tirst taken u]> by the water, sharp and 

 rugged, but by constant rolling they were reduced to rounded forms, 

 and included all sizes from grains of sand and minute pebbles to bowl- 

 ders and even to great masses. All classes of rocks were thus seized 

 by the floods and carried seaward; but all varieties did not reach the 

 sea, save perhaps as sand or clay. The softer rocks were reduced to 

 powder before the journey was fairly begun; brittle and much-flawed 

 varieties, and all friable shales and slates, separated into minute frag- 

 ments and formed beds of sand and gravel; the t(mgh, hard, homo- 

 geneous pieces were rolled and rounded and carried ever onward, 

 refusing to break or to be reduced to dust, and finally rested along the 

 seashore and more especially about the mouths of the great rivers. 



The primitive inhabitants of the crystalline highland had to make 

 use of massive forms of rock or of rude angular or slightly water-worn 

 fragments, and the reduction of these to available sizes ami forms was 

 a ditticult work. Rut the inhabitants of the lowlands were born to 

 more fortunate conditions. The agents of nature— the floods— had 

 with more than human intelligence and power selected the choice bits 

 of rock, the tough quartzite, the flinty quartz, the tough and brittle 

 lavas, the indurated slates, the polished .ias])er, and the beautiful flints, 

 from all the cliffs and gorges of the mountains, and had reduced them 

 to convenient sizes and shapes, and had laid them down in the beds of 

 the shallow estuaries, where through the subseipient rising of the laud 

 and the cutting of valleys they were found at the door of the tidewater 

 lodge, ready or almost ready for immediate use in the arts. Each river 

 coming from a dift'ereut section of the highland secured and transported 

 the varieties of rock most prevalent in its drainage basin, so that the 

 great tidewater region is divided into mineralogic areas corresjioiiding 

 somewhat to those of the mountain valleys supplying the material. 



