ADMINISTRATIVE REPORT XXXVII 
number were observed in use, representing a stage in the devel- 
opment of stone art which has hitherto been obscure. Initially, 
these implements are natural pebbles picked up from among 
the quantities of similar pebbles shingling the beach; yet they 
are used for breaking the shells of crustaceans; for crushing 
bones of fish, fowl, and animals; for pounding apart the tough 
tissues of larger animals; or perchance for crushing and grind- 
ing mesquite beans, cactus seeds, and other vegetal sub- 
stances. Originally selected almost at random, the stone is 
commonly used but once and then thrown away; but, if the 
habitation happens to be located near, the fitter stones are used 
over and over again, perhaps proving so serviceable that when 
the always temporary residence is changed they are carried 
away as a part of the domestic property of the matron. 
Eventually the stone becomes battered and worn by use, so 
that its shape is changed; then, if rendered less useful by the 
change, it is thrown away, while, if made more service eable, it 
is rooted to become a highly esteemed piece of property, 
always carried by the matron in her wanderings and buried 
with her body at death. The series of implements collected, 
and the much larger series seen in Seriland, but not collected, 
show no trace of predetermined design in form or finish. The 
implements are fairly uniform in size, apparently because the 
users are fairly uniform in strength and the uses fairly uniform 
in force required, and they are fairly uniform in shape because 
of similarity in applications; but as a whole the’ series is char- 
acterized by absence of design, by fortuitous adaptation rather 
than that complex invention represented by even the simplest 
chipping or flaking. The culture stage represented by the 
series has already been designated protolithic. It is to be noted 
that the Seri Indians have no other stone industry, save a little 
known and apparently accultural custom of chipping stone for 
the sole purpose of making arrowpoints, and that their knives, 
scrapers, awls, needles, and ordinary arrowpoints are made 
from shell, bone, wood, and other substances of organic origin. 
Now, on assembling the industrial devices of the Florida 
marshes, the Maine shell mounds, the Seri Indians, and the 
more primitive survivors of the Algonquian tribes located in 
