HOLMES] STEATITE QUARRYING 107 



slopes where filling-iii takes place rapidly they are wholly obliterated. 

 Few instances occur in which the depressions now remaining are more 

 than 3 or 3 feet deep. The diameter of the pittiugs does not generally 

 exceed 20 or 30 feet, yet iu cases they had the form of trenches or 

 chains of pits extending for hundreds of feet along the strike of the 

 deposit. Mr Fowke describes an excavation seen by him near Cul- 

 pepei-, Virginia, which is 150 feet in diameter and of undetermined 

 depth, being filled with water and debris. 



SPECIAL INVESTIGATIONS 

 Eari.y Knowi,edge of Steatite 



The use of soapstone by the native races is frequently mentioned 

 by early writers, but no information is given of the acquisition and 

 shaping of the material. One of the earliest accounts of the work iu 

 this country is that of Mr Paul Schumacher, who discovered typical 

 quarries iu the state of California. His illustration of the quarry 

 face, with its i^artly developed nodes of the stone, published in the 

 eleventh annual report of the Peabody Museum, would equally well 

 illustrate the operations iu our eastern quarries. The vessels and other 

 articles produced are very numerous and differ widely from eastern 

 forms. 



Subsequently, Dr Elmer R. Reynolds, of Washington city, made 

 some studies in the Rose hill quarry near Washington, and iKiblished 

 a paper on the subject iu the thirteenth annual report of the Peabody 

 Museum. About this time Mr F. n. Gushing, representing the Smith- 

 sonian Institution, made extensive excavations in an ancient quarry in 

 Amelia county, Virginia, and prepared a model of the exposed quarry 

 surface illustratiug the various jihases of cutting out the incipient 

 vessels. No report of his work was published, save a note in the 

 American Naturalist for 1878. 



In 1882 an important paper by Mr J. D. McGuire on the soapstone 

 quarries of Maryland and the District of Columbia was read before the 

 Anthropological Society of Washington, an extract of which is ])ub- 

 lished in the second volume of its transactions. The present writer's 

 preliminary paper on the Connecticut avenue quarries appeared iu the 

 American Anthropologist for October, 1890. 



A very interesting and extensive quarry was discovered in about 

 the year 1877, on the ground of Mr H. N. Angell, near Providence, 

 Rhode Island, and a note describing the phenomena observed appears 

 in the American Naturalist for 1878. These phenomena are essentially 

 identical with those of more southern localities. 



A like example was observed on the farm of J. T. Case near Bristol, 

 Connecticut, iu 1892, and excavations were made therein by Marshall 

 H. Saville for the Peabody Museum. Many interesting specimens 

 were obtained, not diifering materially from those of other quarries. 

 Vermont has furnished a similar example, and Pennsylvania abounds 



