BAU] NORTH AMERICAN CUP-STONES. 49 



engraving in the 'Ancient Monuments of the Mississippi Valley,' the cups 

 upon the original mass were not all of the same size. One corner of the 

 fragment indicates that it has been exposed to the action of fire. Squier 

 and Davis have suggested that these cups were used in hammering plates 

 of copper into the convex form needed for making bosses. The circum- 

 stances that two of the cups are confluent, that the surface of the block 

 has not been smoothed, and that there is no evidence of bruising from 

 hammering, all militate against the idea that this block was used, or was 

 even intended to be used, as an anvil."* 



Of late years Colonel Charles Whittlesey has devoted special attention 

 to cup-stones. According to his statement, they occur quite frequently in 

 Northern Ohio, more particularly in the valley of the Cuyahoga River ; but 

 he informs me by letter that, to his knowledge, none hate been obtained 

 from the numerous mounds of Ohio. He brings the cup-stones in connec- 

 tion with the spinning process of the natives, supposing the cavities had 

 served as sockets in which spindles were made to revolve, and hence he 

 calls the stones " spindle-socket- stones."t I must confess that I cannot 

 share Colonel Whittlesey's opinion, in view of the absence of spindle- 

 whorls in those parts of the United States where cup-stones thus far have 

 been found. If spindle-whorls had been in use among the former inhab- 

 itants of this country, it is very probable that, in conformity with their 

 well-known taste, they would have made them of stone or clay, and in that 

 case they would be as abundant in the eastern half of the United States as 

 they are in Europe, Avhere the practice of spinning by means of this simple 

 contrivance dates as far back as the neolithic period.J Adair, it is true, in 

 describing tlie mode of weaving in vogue among the Southern Indians 

 (Muskokis, etc.), speaks of an apparatus which may have been a spindle. 

 "Formerly," he observes, "the Indians made very handsome carpets. They 

 have a wild hemp that grows about six feet highj in open, rich, level lands, 

 and which usually ripens in July. It is plenty on our frontier settlements. 

 When it is fit for use, they pull, steep, peel, and beat it; and the old women 



•Stevens: Flint Chips; London, 1870, p. 486. 



t Whittlesey : Ancient Earth Forts of the Cuyahog.a Valley, Ohio ; Cleveland, 1871, p. 33. 

 tit may bo supposed that wherever spindle- whorls were employed in prehistoric times, each 

 woman and girl possessed at least one of these utensils. 

 4 L s 



