FOWKE] ABORIGINAL FLINT QUARRIES 519 
mottled, or banded; opaque or translucent; very compact; easily 
flaked. It is all from nodules of varying sizes, usually red at the 
center; the weathered crust of different thicknesses, sometimes only a 
thin coating on the solid flint inside, sometimes so thick as to make 
the nodule worthless. 
No matter what the color may be, most of the flint has a peculiar 
luster which, like that of the Flint Ridge (Ohio) stone, makes it 
easy to recognize wherever found. This quality establishes the fact 
that fully 75 per cent, perhaps more, of the flint implements found 
along the Ohio between the Guyandotte and the Kentucky Rivers, 
and possibly to a less extent beyond these limits, are made of the 
flint from Carter County. 
McGinnis and Oney places —There is much chert on the McGinnis 
and Oney farms, on the ridge extending to the southeast from 
Smith’s; but it does not appear to be adaptable to aboriginal require- 
ments, and there is no evidence that it was sought by Indians. 
John Hignite place—On John Hignite’s farm, 5 miles south of 
Carter, is a small area over which is scattered much broken flint, 
many nodules, and a small quantity of worked pieces. There is some 
of the red among it, but most of the stone is coarse and unsuited for 
working. No pits or other signs of digging could be discovered, and 
the numerous gullies in the vicinity may have provided all the 
material used. 
Levi Hignite place. —On the farm of Levi Hignite, 5 miles south- 
east of Carter, in a rolling tract separated from Tygart River by a 
narrow range of high hills, mountainous in appearance, is a field so 
overgrown with weeds and bushes that only in a very few places is 
it possible to see the ground. There were formerly many pits and 
other evidences of ancient digging, but before the field was abandoned 
they were filled and leveled in the process of cultivation. An area 
estimated by different persons familiar with the locality at about 
10 acres is covered with broken nodules and smaller fragments, 
among which is a very large proportion of pieces more or less worked. 
Fully 2 acres of this space could never be plowed on account of the 
great amount of closely packed fragments. On knolls and ridges in 
the immediate vicinity are workshops where it would seem that much 
flaking was done. An attempt at a careful examination was made, 
but it is impossible to present any definite statement until the field 
may be cleared off again. It could be ascertained, however, that 
many of the nodules had the usual centers of red or brown, semitrans- 
lucent, compact flint; possibly some of this is fossil coral. The 
interior of other nodules was bluish or grayish. All had the chalky 
coating in various degrees of thickness. The range and variation 
in texture and coloration is not so great as in the flint at the Smith 
diggings and workshops. 
