HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 109 



distributed and monumental features of unique type abound. The 

 latter include groups and chains of earthworks in formal and 

 puzzling arrangements, and numerous animal-shaped mounds, con- 

 fined largely to Wisconsin, and supposed to have had some important 

 sacerdotal function. 



The area has within its borders two features of exceptional in- 

 terest : the ancient copper mines of the Lake Superior 

 Copper Mines and j.^o^qj;,^ and the catlinitc or red pii:)estone quarries of 



Catlinite Quarries & . 



southwestern Minnesota. The sites of the copper 

 mines are marked by extensile pittings made in exposing the 

 copper-bearing rocks and breaking them up to release the nuisses 

 of native copper. This work was accomplished mainly with heavy 

 bowlder hammers obtained from the lake shores and by the aid 

 of fire. Thousands of these hammers are found in and about 

 the old pits, occasional specimens being grooved for hafting. The 

 copper was worked up into implements, ornaments, and objects 

 of faith of gi^eat variety which are found, especially associated with 

 burials, throughout the United States. The implements employed 

 in quarrying the pipestone were tough fragments of quartzite 

 rock, roughly shaped for the purpose. The old excavations ex- 

 tend along the narrow outcrop for nearly a mile across the smooth 

 surface of the prairie. The articles made from the catlinite were 

 tobacco pipes, ceremonial objects, and ornaments, and these were 

 distributed and used, as was the copper, throughout a large part of 

 the area now included in the United States. 



The stone utensils of the area comprise rude mortars and pestles, 

 the latter of the cylindrical type, and the pecked and ground imple- 

 ments include grooved axes, celts, adz blades — rarely of gouge shape — 

 tobacco pipes, tubes, and the usual range of ceremonial and talis- 

 manic objects. The fluted ax and the faceted celt are peculiar to 

 the area. Deposits of flint were worked in many places and chipped 

 implements of usual types are exceedingly plentiful. 



Quartz veins were worked at an early period about the Little Falls 

 of the Mississippi, and crudely chipped artifacts are found in flood- 

 plain deposits of the vicinity, which are regarded by some geologists 

 as having been laid down during the closing stages of the glacial 

 period. 



The pottery of the area is of distinctive types and generally more 

 primitive in make than is the ware of the South. In some sections 

 the pots are carefully finished and decorated w4tli incised and 

 indented figures, but painted specimens are rare. 



A most noteworthy feature of the region is the manufacture in 

 recent years of many false antiquities of peculiar type, j^urporting 

 to represent early occupancy of the country by Old World peoples. 



