holmes] 



ABORIGINAL AMERICAN" ANTIQUITIES PART I 



337 



Still more important was the work of the bruising-crumbling tool 



in getting out and dressing 

 Quarrying Stone the stone employed in the 



building and sculptural arts. 

 Vast supplies of the requisite materials were 

 hewn from the massive formations of the 

 earth's crust bj^^ the man with the pick and 

 hammer. The task of cutting out the stea- 

 tite from the northern quarries was more 

 difficult and laborious than the shaping of 

 the many artifacts made from it, the proc- 

 esses and tools, however, being in large part 

 the same. Far more arduous was the task of 

 extracting the blocks of limestones, tra- 

 chytes, granites, and other hard and massive 

 rocks from the undisturbed beds in the hills. 

 Under the face of a cliff near Mitla the 

 writer came upon a partially hewn block of 

 trachyte (fig. 197) which had been aban- 

 doned by the workmen while the labor of 

 separating it into three parts was in prog- 

 ress. The rude hammers and picks, one a 

 much battered celt, with which, it is as- 

 sumed, the channels were being crumbled through the mass, were scat- 

 tered about in profusion (fig. 198). On the mountain side above the 



Fig. 195. A chisel-like blade 

 of flint from Yucatan. 



Fig. 196. Three forms of the crumbling-carving process — with mallet and chisel, with 

 hafted pick, and with pick held in the hand. 



