POWKE] ABORIGINAL FLINT QUARRIES 509 
rock of chert, which held its place throughout the erosion that took 
place on either side, thus determining the peculiar form of the hill. 
The slopes are in timber and brush, growing out of débris in which 
there is less of earth than of chert, which is in a fragmentary con- 
dition. The summit is covered with grass and weeds. Colonel 
Metham, who made a careful study of conditions when the tract was 
placed under cultivation, found satisfactory evidence that the aborig- 
ines had begun at the outcrop on the western side and dug out all 
the chert in the 5-acre area, throwing the débris behind them as the 
work progressed, and thus leaving little pits and hummocks over the 
entire surface. Owing to farming operations through many years, 
these inequalities of surface were no longer visible at the time the 
field was set in grass. There seems to have been much wastage, as 
many large blocks which are unfit for working are scattered over the 
top and slopes. Along both sides, facing the ravines, the outcrop is 
visible in places for some distance back from the worked area; but 
the dense growth renders it impossible to ascertain whether any 
quarrying was done. 
Most of the flint is gray, ranging from almost white to almost 
black; but much of it is jet black (basanite), either dull or lustrous. 
The gray, being uneven or irregular in structure, is much less suit- 
able for chipping than the black, which is very smooth and compact. 
A spur projecting westward from the north end of the ridge com- 
mands a view of several miles up and down the Walhonding Valley. 
On the extreme point of this, almost over Colonel Metham’s house, is 
a stone mound which was fully 10 feet high before being disturbed 
by relic hunters. They report finding in it the skeleton of a man at 
least 7 feet tall. A few articles were with it, but nothing beyond the 
ordinary objects usually found in such tumuli. 
Meredith place——Adjoining Colonel Metham’s on the south is the 
farm of Jesse Meredith, better known as the Crist place, having been 
for three generations in possession of a family of that name. From 
the main ridge a spur extends in an easterly direction; the residence 
stands at the extremity of the spur that ends abruptly at a valley 
through which passes the road from Warsaw to Mohawk village. 
On the north side of this spur the flint outcrops near the top of the 
slope. Along the outcrop, for a few rods below it, and up the 
rounded summit elevation until the overlying earth becomes too thick 
to be easily removed, are many pits, all large, and dug to a depth 
necessary to penetrate to the level of the flint. Occasional spaces 
along the outcrop seem to have been left untouched, but this appear- 
ance is probably due to earth having been piled from diggings on 
either side; in most parts the excavations are in the form of long 
trenches which extend continuously fully a fourth of a mile. On top 
