172 STOXE ART. lETHANN. 13 



em woodworkers. Flakes have been found in the Swiss lakes in wooden 

 handles in the fashion of Eskimo knives; also in Australia with skin 

 wrapped around one end to protect the hand.' 



All the flakes in the Bureau collection are small, few of them being 

 over three inches long. They are found elsewhere with a length of over 

 afoot; but the nature of the liiut occurring in the United States is 

 seldom such as to allow flakes to be struck off equaling in size those 

 found in Europe. 



Evans says that blows with a pebble will form just such flakes as 

 those produced by an iron hammer; the blows must, however, be deliv- 

 ered in exactly the right spot and with the proper force. Cores some- 

 times show markings of hammers when struck too near the edge. 

 Flakes can be produced by using a pebble as a set or punch and strik- 

 ing it with a stone. The use of a set was i)robably the excejition 

 rather than the rule, for great i)recision may be obtained simply with 

 a hammer held in the hand. The Eskimo use a hammer set in a han- 

 dle to strike off flakes, or strike them off by slight taps with a hammer 

 of jade, oval in shape, about 2 by 3 inches, and secured to a bone handle 

 with sinew.^ 



According to Tylor, the Peruvian Indians work obsidian by laying a 

 bone wedge on the surface of a piece and tapping it until the stone 

 cracks;^ while the Indians of Mexico hold a piece of obsidian 6 or 8 

 inches long between their feet, then holding the crosspiece of a T- 

 shape stick against the breast they place the other end against the 

 stone and force off a piece by pressure.* 



Nilsson says that the Eskimo set a point of deer horn into a handle 

 of ivory and drive oft' splinters from the chert,'' and Redding saw a 

 Cloud river Indian make flakes thus: Holding a piece of obsidian in 

 his hand, he placed the straight edge of a piece of split deer horn, four 

 inches long and half an inch in diameter, at a distance from the edge 

 of the stone equal to the thickness of the arrow he wished to make; 

 then striking the other end with a stone he drove off a flake.^ Schu- 

 macher observed that the Klamath Indians heat a stone and break it 

 into fragments at a single blow.' 



According to Stevens the Shasta Indian lays a stone anvil on his knee, 

 and holding on the anvil the stone which he is working," strikes off a 

 flake one-fourth of an inch thick with a stone hammer; but Powers 

 says the Shasta Indians heat a stone and allow it to cool slowly, which 

 splits it into flakes,^ and Bancroft that they place an obsidian pebble 



I stone Implements, p. 263. 

 'Ibid., pp. 20, 23, and 35. 



5 Anahuac, p. 99. 



« Ibid, pp. 231. 232 (note). 

 » Stone Age, p. 261 (note). 



6 Amer. Naturalist, vol. xill, p. 665. 



' Hayden Survey. Bui. 3. 1877, p. .547. 



' Flint Chips, p. 77. 



' ContributioL s to N. A. Eth., vol in, p. 104. 



