46 CUP-SBAPED AND OTHER LAPIDARIAN SCULPTURES. 



In Fig. 36 I give the representation of another stone of this type, 

 derived from the neighborhood of, Portsmouth, Ohio, and likewise preserved 

 in the National Museum. It is a pebble of fine-grained sandstone, almost 

 quadrilateral in shape, about an inch and a half thick, and provided on each 

 side with a rather shallow depression. Both cavities are covered with red 

 paint, which seems to have penetrated into the stone. Several other speci- 

 mens in the archaeological collection of the National Museum are character- 

 ized by the same peculiarity, and hence it may be assumed that the stones 

 under notice are cups in which the aborigines rubbed or dissolved the colors 

 used in face-painting and for other 2:)urposes. Indeed, paint-mortars of 

 stone, not much differing from the utensils in question, are still employed 

 by remote western tribes. 



I must now proceed to consider another very remarkable class of North 

 American relics, namely, stones of larger size, upon which several cup- 

 like cavities are worked out. The material of these stonfes is almost 

 exclusively sandstone, and they occur mostly in the shape of flat fragments 

 without definite contours. The cups are either on one of the flat sides or 

 on both, and their number on a surface varies, as far as I have observed, 

 from two to ten. They are irregularly distributed, being placed close 

 together or more or less apart from each other. In general they measure 

 an inch and a half in diameter, but sometimes less. The cavities are pro- 

 duced by grinding-, and usually approach a semi-spherical form; occasion- 

 ally, however, they are somewhat conical or funnel-shaped. * Their inner 

 surfaces exhibit different degrees of smoothness, being often, in conse- 

 quence of weathering, rather rough, like the remaining surface of the stone. 

 These cup-stones bear some resemblance to those found in certain lacustrine 

 stations of Switzerland ; but they seem to diff'er in appearance and destina- 

 tion from the English cupped stones described by Mr. Greenwell. 



A cup-stone in the National Museum, derived from Summit County, 

 Ohio, and weighing eleven pounds, is represented by V'lg. 37. The level 

 surface shows nine cups, of which six are perfect, and three, placed near 

 the broken sides, more or less incomplete. The stone, it will be seen, is a 

 fragment, and may originally have been provided with more than nine cav- 

 ities. There are now eleven of these cup-stones in the National Museum, 



