HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 231 



Pacific States it was extensively mined, and to an undetermined 

 extent in the Arctic regions. Little evidence of the presence of mines 

 of this material has been collected in Middle and South America. 

 In the East two extensively worked quarries have been carefully 



studied by the writer, one in the suburbs of Wash- 

 nne o!,'arry *'''' "^g^on City and the other in Fairfax County, Va. 



These may be taken as types, the manner of operating, 

 the implements used, and the product being much the same every- 

 where. The former, known as the Eose Ilill quarry, is located on 

 Connecticut Avenue 4 miles from the White House. Here steatite 

 of somewhat inferior quality outcropjied in the banks of a small 

 stream and in two rounded hills which rise to the right and left. 

 The first account of the superficial features of this site was given 

 by Elmer K. Eeynolds in the Twelfth Annual Report of the Peabody 

 Museum of Archeology and Ethnology in 1870. Later, Frank H. 

 Gushing made examinations and collections from the surface, and in 

 1800 the old pittings were cleared out and exhaustively studied by 

 the present wa-iter. The old excavations were shallow, but extended 

 over considerable areas, and numerous partly worked and rejected 

 A-essels and many quarry implements were collected. The abortive 

 vessels illustrated in figure 104 show with remarkable clearness the 

 marks left by the shaping tools. The ordinary form of vessel pro- 

 duced in the eastern quarry shops is shown in figure 105. 



The Clifton quarry had been extensively operated and was opened 



up and fully cleared out by WilliamDinwiddie, of the 

 Fairfax County, ]3,^u.gjj^^ of American Ethnology, under the writer's 



A a., Quarry _ _ _ *'•' ' 



direction, in 1893. The exposure of steatite had been 

 followed into the hillside about 100 feet by the aboriginal miners, 

 and the excavations in places reached a depth of nearly 20 feet in the 

 solid stone, 10,000 or more cubic feet of which had been removed. 

 A general view of the excavations after clearing out is presented in 

 figure lOG. It is seen that the entire steatite surface is scarred by the 

 jiick work of the quarrymen. 



A number of the implements used in this and other quarries of 

 the region are shown in figures 107-110. They include chisel-like 

 forms made of several varieties of tough stone and grooved axes 

 diverted from their normal uses and employed as picks. In many 

 instances the latter are broken, sj^lintered, and modified by reshaping 

 until the original form, excepting the groove, which was protected 

 by the hafting, was lost. The discovery of a longitudinally grooved 

 gouge-form implement (fig. Ill) in the Rose Hill (juarry near Wash- 

 ington is a noteworthy occurrence, since specimens of this type are 

 rare outside of New England. 



