METHODS OF FLAKING. 



173 



on an anvil of stone and split it with an agate chisel to the required 

 size.' The Shoshoni or Snake Indians of the northwest work in the 

 same way,^ and certain California Indians strike oft' flakes from a mass 

 of agate, jasper, or chalcedony with a stone hammer,^ while the Apache 

 break a bowlder of hornstone with a heavy stone hammer having a 

 twisted withe for a handle.^ 



Schoolcraft says experience has taught the Indians that some varie- 

 ties of hornstone (flint) are less easily fractured than others, and tiiat 

 the conchoidal form is found best in softer varieties ; also that weath- 

 ered fragments are managed with greater difficulty than are those 

 freshly quarried.'' 



Evans points out that in making gunfliuts much depends upou the 

 condition of the stone as regards the moisture it contains, those that 

 have been too long exposed on the surface becoming intractable, and 

 there is also a difQculty iu working those that are too moist. Some of 

 the workers, however, say that a flint which has been some time 

 exposed to the air is harder than one recently dug, yet it works equally 

 well."^ 



It is related that in former times white hunt ^_ , 

 ers in Ohio and Kentucky, when they needed £' r 

 a gunflint, would select a fragment from the * "- 

 surface, where practicable, and soak it in oil C 

 for several weeks " to make it tongh ;" other ' 

 wise it would shatter to fragments when 

 struck. 



Frequently the large flat spalls knocked 

 from blocks or chunks of flint in shaping 

 them, or iu obtaining pieces to work, are of 

 such form that very little additional labor 

 converts them into serviceable scrapers, 

 knives, spears, or arrows. A number of such 

 pieces are found iu the collection. These, 

 however, are not considered iu the flakes now to be described : 



.4. Edges bluntly chipped (from the concave side) for use as scrapers. 

 They may or may not have notches for attachment to a handle. An 

 example from Kanawha valley, West Virginia, is shown in figure 2G3. 

 Others come from southwestern Arkansas; Kanawha valley; Miami 

 and Scioto valleys, and central Ohio. 



B. Trimmed ouly eaough to give a general leaf shape, the faces being 

 left unchanged; for use as knives or arrowheads, most of them being 

 exceedingly small; notched, or witli continuous edges. This form is 



' Native Kaces, toI. i, p. 3i2. 



2 Schoolcraft; Indian Tribes, vol. i, p. 212. 



^Stevens; Elint Chips, p. 78 (from Powers). 



* Catlin : Last Rnnililes Among the Indiana, p. 187. 



* Indian Tribes, vol. in, p. 467. 

 ^ Stone Implements, p. 17. 



-Flake, chipped 

 scraper. 



