FowKE] TYPES OF MORTARS. 97 



Mississippi, there is a flattened bowlder witli a shallow cavity on each 

 side; a shallow cup has been pecked on the edge of one of them. From 

 Caldwell county, North Carolina, conies a bowlder of water- worn mica- 

 schist, with a shallow cavity and a deeper one on one side, and on the 

 other a cupped hole opposite each of these cavities. 



C. With one side hollowed out, the other flat and smooth. Speci- 

 mens of this type come from Caldwell county, North Carolina; McMinn 

 county, Tennessee, and Bradley county, Tennessee, the last with a pit 

 in the center and another on the edge of the flat side. 



D. With a long, narrow depression on each side. A very large 

 specimen of fine-grained sandstone from Lincoln county, Arkansas, 

 represents this type. 



There are, in addition, two pieces of fine-grained sandstone with uni- 

 form thickness of less than an inch and about 10 inches across, from 

 Kanawha valley, West Virginia, and Hale county, Alabama, respec- 

 tively. Both sides are ground perfectly smooth and flat. The objects 

 were probably for some culinary purpose. 



Sinkers. 



The sinkers in the collection may be divided into four classes, viz: 

 A, entirely iin worked; B, notched on the sides; (7, encircled by a 

 groove; and D, perforated. Conversely, stones under all these differ- 

 ent heads may have served other and widely diii'erent jjurposes. 



Of the functions of class A, only those who have seen them in use can 

 speak. Stevens mentions that some tribes inclose a round stone in a 

 sort of net and attach it to a line in fishing; ' and no other use can be 

 imagined for some of the specimens in the Bureau collection. 



Specimens of class B are found along water courses in such situations 

 as to leave no doubt of their use as sinkers ; ^ they were attached to 

 grapevines and dragged on the bottom of streams to frighten fish into 

 nets or traps.' Those in the collection are made of ordinary flat water- 

 worn pebbles, with notches rudely chipped in the sides; a number are 

 from southeastern Tennessee. 



Of class C, while many were perhaps sinkers, more were club heads 

 and slungshots or hammers. A number have been obtained from Savan- 

 nah, Georgia, more or less worked, some being rounded, with grooves 

 of varying depths and sizes. Small stones of this form are used by 

 Greenland fishermen as sinkers ; ■* and according to Thatcher, a large 

 stone is by the Indians made fast to a sinking line at each end of a net, 

 and the net is spread in the water by sinkers at different parts of it.^ 



Class D will be referred to under the head "Perforated stones," from 

 which they can be discriminated only arbitrarily. 



' Flint Chips, p. 95. 



' Abbott, C. C. : Primitive Industry, chap. 28. 

 * Jones. C. C; Antiquities of the Southern Indians, p. 338. 

 *Nils3on, S., Stone Age, p. 25. 

 'Thatcher, B. B. ; Indian Traits, vol. i, p. 70. 

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