48 CUP-SHAPED AND OTHER LAPIDARIAN SCULPTUEES. 



small quantity of the fluid pigment, in order to use it freed from the par- 

 ticles of coloring mineral substance remaining in the mortar.* 



These two illustrations of the use of paint-cups among Indians of our 

 time certainly afford no direct evidence that the cup-stones in question were 

 made to serve in a similar manner, though they certainly heighten the 

 probability of such an application. 



The first "notice of an American cup-stone, I believe, is contained in 

 "The Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley," by Squier and Davis, 

 the well-known work published in 1848 as the first volume of Smithsonian 

 Contributions to Knowledge. On page 206 (Fig. 92) a sandstone block, 

 said to have been found in one of the mounds of Ohio, is figui-ed. The 

 block, weighing between thirty and fort}" pounds, exhibited on its surface 

 a number of cujjs of diff'erent sizes, resembling, as the authors state, in all 

 respects those in work-blocks of coppersmiths, in which plates of metal 

 are hammered to give them convexity. Hence it aj^peared to them prob- 

 able that the block had been used in the manufacture of such concavo- 

 convex discs of native copper as are sometimes met with in the mounds of 

 the Mississippi Valley. While living in New York, I had often occasion to 

 see a fragment of this block in the collection of Dr. E. H. Davis, and a 

 careful examination of the relic made it evident to me that the cavities had 

 not been used as Messrs. Squier and Davis supposed. By the sale of the 

 Davis collection, which comprised the bulk of the mound-relics obtained 

 b}^ the two explorers, to the late Mr. William Black more, the fragment in 

 question was transferred to the Blackmore Museum, in Salisbury, England, 

 and Mr. E. T. Stevens has since described it as follows : — 



"The oblong fragment in the Blackmore collection measures six inches 

 by eight, and has upon it three perfect detached cups, two cups which are 

 confluent, portions of three finished cups, one half finished, and several 

 which have been commenced. It may be well to remark that these ' cups' 

 are oval, there being a difference in the two diameters of about one-eighth 

 of an inch. They measure in their greater diameter about one inch and a 

 half, and are about seven-eighths of an inch in depth. Judging from the 



* In painting pottery, etc., they apply the color with a brush stripped from the leaves of the 

 yucca plant. 



