holmes] aboriginal AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 157 



The brittle varieties of stone, such as coukl be shaped by fracture 

 processes, were in special demand among nearly all 

 Brittle Stone the tribes, siuce they alone were readily adapted to the 



manufacture of cutting and piercing implements and 

 weapons. The A'arieties commonly sought w^ere chert in several of its 

 forms, including novaculite, jasper, agate, and flint; various forms of 

 quartz and (juartzite; several metamorphic varieties, and such brittle 

 eruptive rocks as rhyolite and obsidian. In northern America the 

 best known (juarries of these rocks are those of Pennsylvania, Ohio, 

 Georgia, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Wyoming, where massive bodies 

 of the stone were worked; in Kentucky, Indiana, 

 Nodules and Illinois, where nodules were a chief source of 



supply, and in the Potomac Valley, where bowlder 

 beds were the principal resource of the implement maker. That many 

 others remain undiscovered in the forests and mountains is indicated 

 by the fact that the source of many varieties of stone extensively used 

 by the aboi-igines has not been determined. Clay for earthenware 

 and fire clay, employed in carving minor artifacts, were mined in 

 many sections. Pipestone was ({uarried in Minnesota and steatite 

 in many sections throughout northern America. Extensive quarries 

 where obsidian was obtained occur in Mexico, and the stone quarries, 

 where building stone was gotten out, in southern JNIexico and Peru 

 have been visited and briefly descril)ed by archeologists. 



Iron ore in the form of hematite was mined in ^Missouri, and red, 

 yellow, and white paint materials were obtained 

 Mining of Metals from the Same source. These are the deepest mines 

 known in northern America, the ore body having 

 been extensively tunneled to a depth of 25 feet or more. Copper 

 was mined in the Lake Superior region, and the ancient workings 

 of Isle Poyale are the most extensive yet discovered in any part of 

 America. 



Little is definitely known of the mining of the precious metals. 

 Gold and silver were in very general use in Middle and South 

 America on the arrival of Eurojieans. but the literature of the 

 period contains only meager mention of the great industries neces- 

 sarily connected with their production. The mines were at once 

 t;ds:en possession of by the greedy con(]uerors, and European methods 

 of extracting and treating the metals were introduced. Gold was 

 usually obtained from alluvial deposits by simple methods of pan- 

 ning and sluicing. There seems to have been little knowledge of 

 the reduction of ores, although accounts are preserved of the smelt- 

 ing or melting out of silver in primitive furnaces. 



