XY. FLINT QUAERIES: WEST VIRGINIA, KENTUCKY, 



INDIANA 



THE quarries and quarry shops of West Yirginia are numerous 

 and correspond closely in every essential feature with those 

 of Ohio. The flint occurs in like manner and is generally 

 blackish in color. Unfortunately their examination has been very 

 superficial. 



In some sections of the State, more especially in the middle Ka- 

 nawha Yalley, a dark firm-grained diabase was much used in the 

 manufacture of ordinary leaf-blade forms and also in the making 

 of celts, but the quarries have not been definitely located. 



Fowke, who has an extended first-hand knowledge of the dis- 

 tribution of the flint-bearing formations of the Ohio Yalley, writes 

 as follows: 



It i.s necessary to pass westward over the different limestone groups that 

 extend from tlie Oluo coal measures until we reach the sub- 

 [Iiuliana Quarries] carboniferous limestones of soutliern Indiana before we find 

 otlier quarries, and we find that the character of the deposits 

 has changed. Tlie regular strata are no longer to be seen, Init in their place 

 occur the nodules that pertain to a geological horizon different from that we have 

 above studied. The stone itself is no longer broken and thus released from the 

 bedrock, but the digger attacked the clays that result from tlie disintegration of 

 the limestone. All the lime has been dissolved by tlie huniic and carbonic acids 

 carried downward by percolating waters which, liowever, have no effect on tlie 

 flint, and the nodules are left scattered throughout the clay much in the order 

 as that in which they occurred in the limestone. Erosion caused many of these 

 to roll down to the bottom of the slopes, and here the Indians found them. 

 But they soon leai'ned that this weathered material was not well suited for 

 their tools, and they began digging in the hillsides for fresh, unweathered 

 nodules. The stone they found there was the hard, bluish-gray hornstone that 

 is more easily chipped and worked than any other form of the silicious rock 

 to be found in the central valleys, and the immense amount of quarrying that 

 has been done in almost every spot where the material is abundant, shows 

 that the red man was cognizant of and fully appreciated the wealth that lay 

 lieneath his feet. It is only in the vicinity of the Ohio River that the best 

 hornstone is found ; as we go northward the stone gradually becomes coarser, 

 until it passes into a chert that is almost spongy. 



It may be well here to correct an error that has obtained wide circulation 

 regarding use of flint from the Wyandot cave. It is stated in many books 

 that the Indians resorted to this cave to procure flint, which they broke into 

 small, angular fragments, carrying the latter into the open air to fabricate into 



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