HOI.JIES] BLADE-MAKING 151 



tliat this would be putting- together portions of the work not usually 

 associated in the great quarries here and elsewhere. General condi- 

 tions would ha\'c warranted tlie association, however, for, as has been 

 shown elsewhere, where sites of dwelling or use were closely combined 

 with sites producing the raw material the roughing-out operations were 

 doubtless often followed by the finishing processes in a continuous 

 series. 



Cojiics of the group, as illustrated iu the ft'ontispiece, are now set 

 up in the National Museum at Washington and in the Field Colum- 

 bian ^luseum at Chicago. 



II 



While engaged iu the work of excavation on the Piny branch quarry 

 site, I took up the matter of the shaiiing processes employed by the 

 quarrymen, and assunung that bowlders were used for hammerstones, 

 attemi>ted to accomplish by free-hand flaking what had been done by 

 the ancient artisans. For some time I labored at great disadvantage, 

 as 1 was experimenting as a rule with material already rejected as 

 unfit for use. When the quarry face was reached and the superiority 

 of the bowlders fresh from the bed realized, I took up the work with 

 renewed hope, but an accident to my left arm, resulting from attempts 

 to flake a very large stone beld in the left hand, caused the practical 

 discontinuance of the experiments. Although not absolutely sure that 

 I was working as the quarrymen had worked, there can be no doubt 

 that I was not far wrong, for no other known process could take the 

 place of free hand percussion in fracturing and tlaking the lirni, smooth, 

 round bowlders. The hammer, even if of other material; would have 

 to be operated in an identical manner. 



In taking up the work of tlaking stone I fully realized the ditticulty 

 of the task. The art is not to be learned in a day any more than are 

 any of the ordinary mechanic arts such as carpentry or the working of 

 metal, yet if savages learned it others can learn it, and no doubt of 

 ultimate success need be felt by any student willing to give liberally of 

 time and labor. 



The difiBculty of flaking the stone was not great, for a considerable 

 percentage of the bowlders fracture with comparative ease; but the 

 great difficulty was iu causing the flakes to carry far enough across the 

 face of the stone to give the necessary low convexity to the surface, 

 and when this result was reached approximately on one side it was 

 extremely uncertain whether it could be repeated on the other side, the 

 re([uisite form, as indicated in this and all other quarry-shops of the 

 same class, being a thin blade of lensliko profile. The sections shown 

 in figure 29a illustrate phases of successful and unsuccessful flaking. 



In the first illustration the left side shows the removal of four flakes 

 and reduction of the surf:ice to nearly the necessary degree of convex- 

 ity. The work on the other side failed utterly, the flakes did not carry, 

 and a high i^eak resulted. This is the profile of multitudes of failures. 



