SOME MANUFACTURES. aD 
inchoate arrow-head is laid on this pad along the thick of the thumb, the 
points of the fingers pressing it firmly down. The instrument used to 
shape the stone is the end of a deer’s antler, from four to six inches in 
length, held in the right hand. The small round point of this is judiciously 
pressed upon the edge of the stone, cleaving it away underward in small 
scales. The buckskin, of course, is to prevent the flesh from being 
wounded by the sharp scales. The arrow-head is frequently turned around 
and over to cleave away as much from one side as the other, and to give it 
the desired size and shape. It is a work of no little care and skill to make 
even so rude an instrument as an arrow-head seems to be, only the most 
expert being very successful at the business. Old men are usually seen at 
this employment.” 
Mr. B. P. Avery, in an article entitled “Chips from an Indian Work- 
shop”, published in the same magazine, gives a very pleasant account of a 
visit made by him, near the summit of the Sierra, to what had evidently 
been the spots selected by the aborigines for the manufacture of these 
arrow-heads. ‘They were generally so chosen as to show that the Indians 
had an eye for the picturesque and the romantic, on bold, overlooking 
promontories, commanding prospects far and wide down the mountain slope 
and over the plains; and the brilliant-colored chips of obsidian, jasper, 
chert, cornelian, and other flints, lying in piles, compléted a very pleasing 
picture. 
Most California Indians go now, and always have gone, barefoot; but 
some few were industrious enough to make for themselves moccasins of a 
very rude sort, more properly sandals. Their method of tanning was by 
means of brain-water. They dried the brains of deer and other animals, 
reduced it to powder, put the powder into water, and soaked the skins 
therein—a process which answered tolerably well. The graining was done 
with flints. Elk-hide, being very thick, make the best sandals, 
The usual shell-money is used among them, and a string of it reaching 
from the point of the middle finger to the elbow is valued at 25 cents. 
A section of bone, very white and polished, about two and a half 
inches long, is sometimes strung on the string, and rates at 124 cents. 
They uniformly undervalue articles bought from the Americans; for 
