HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAN ANTIQUITIES PART I 279 



arranged in five groups: (1) fracturing^ represented by the terms 

 breaking, flaking, chipping, and knapping; (2) cfunibllny, including 

 sucli acts as pecking and liannnering; (o) abrading, as in rubbing, 

 scraping, boring, sawing, and polishing; (4) Incising, including cut- 

 ting and shaving; (5) piercing, as with an awl or punch. The proc- 

 esses employed in a given case were determined by the nature and 

 form of the material worked, by the available shaping tools, by the 

 intelligence and skill of the workman, by the character of the object 

 or work designed, and by a number of minor considerations. Frac- 

 turing is available to some extent with all varieties of stone, and as a 

 specializing process where the stone to be shaped is measurably 

 brittle, as flint, jasper, an^ quartz. Heat fracture, although of great 

 service in breaking up bodies of rock, is of little value in the shaping 

 work. The crumbling processes are employed when the materials 

 worked, while readily subject to crumbling and in a measure to 

 fractuiing, are capable of resisting fracture by the ordinary shocks 

 of percussion, like the granites, many of the more compact eruptives, 

 fibrolite and jade. All varieties of minerals are suseei)tible of shap- 

 ing by abrasion, while simple piercing with a point is but slightly 

 applicable except with such soft and yielding substances as fire clay, 

 soapstone, and mica. Incising is emj)loyed where the stone is rela- 

 tively soft, as soai)stone, serpentine, cannel coal, and the like. 



The materials employed by the tribes were of many kinds and 

 occurred in many forms. Some attractive varieties. 

 Materials, Shaped being rare and difficult to procure, were regarded as 

 precious, and often as being possessed of exceptional 

 qualities or mysterious attributes. Others were scattered broadcast 

 over the face of the country and were readily obtained, while others 

 occurred in extensive deposits extending beneath the surface and were 

 available only by quarrying or mining. Through long experience the 

 aborigines had ac(iuired extensive and accurate knowledge of the 

 superficial distribution of these materials and of their nature and 

 adajitability to i)rocesses and uses. They vary in form, texture, 

 hardness, etc., and these qualities are important factors in deciding 

 the shaping processes used and the character of the art form ]iro- 

 duced, but detailed discussion of these qualities can add little of real 

 value and will not be taken up in this place. Special studies of the 

 characteristics of fracture have been made by various writers, promi- 

 nent among whom are Pfeiffer,^ and S. Ilazzledine Warren. - 



Having secured the raw materials from the surface or by quarry- 

 ing, the next step of the primitive implement maker 

 Forms''^ ^"^*"''''' was either to utilize the available product unchanged 

 or to shape it for more effective use. Convenient 

 water-worn forms from the ri\er banks or from gravel beds were 



' See his wrirk. " T>i(" Stcinznitlische Teohnik." 



2 Warron, Kxperiiiieutal liivestigatidn of Flint Fracture. 



