XXXV. FIRE FRACTURE PROCESSES 



THE use of fire in fracturing stone is well known and was widely 

 practiced by the aborigines. The process was employed ex- 

 tensively in quarrying, as in the copper and flint mines, to 

 break up large bodies of rock and also in fracturing smaller masses 

 for the purpose of obtaining fragments and spalls, for use as imple- 

 ments or for the manufacture of implements. In general, however, 

 the action of hre is destructive to stone, and if not very discreetly 

 employed will so flaw the stone as to make it unfit for most uses. 

 Fowke tells us how this destructive tendency was probably avoided 

 by the ancient quarrymen of Flint Ridge. ^ According to his deter- 

 mination, fire was built upon the surface of the flint body, such 

 portions of the purer stone as were desired for use being protected 

 from the action of the heat by hu'ers of moist clay. 



References to the employment of heat in shaping stone, which is a 

 very different matter from merely breaking it up, 

 turin-'^ "^^* ^^'^^' '^^"® numerous but generally lacking in fullness, and 

 very few of the available accounts appear to be 

 based on first-hand observation. Speaking of the Klamath Indian 

 method of fracturing stone, Schumacher says that in obtaining suit- 

 able fragments of stone for arrow making, " The rock is first exposed 

 to fire and after a thorough heating, rapidly cooled off, when it 

 flakes readily into sherds of different sizes under well-directed blows 

 at its cleavage." - Although this author had the good fortune to 

 meet the last arrow maker of the tribe, it does not appear that he 

 witnessed the use of fire as described. 



Mabel L. Miller states^ that the Diggers (Maidu) on the eastern 

 side of the Sacramento River heated the stone and then chipped it 

 " with a spikelike stone implement, which was dipped in cold water, 

 placed quickly on the hot flint, and the necessary stroke given." A 

 rough stone was used to grind points and edges into shape. 



A remarkable account of the use of fire in chipping flint imple- 

 ments is furnished by Thomas H. Eraser, who states in a recent 

 publication that he — 



was informed by Chief Paul, tlie liead of a remnant of tlie IMie-mac tribe, 

 resident on tlie northern coast of Nova Scotia, that in his grantlfather's time, 

 flint arrow-heads were made by the systematic application of fire and water, 

 and I still have in my possession an arrow-head made according to the process 

 described by him. 



1 FowkP, Archrpological History of Ohio, pp. 022-G23. 



2 Schumacher, Methods of ^Makins Stone Weapons, p. 547. 



3 Miller, The so-called California " Diggers," p. 207. 



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