RAU.] NORTH AMERICAN CUPPED BOULDERS. 51 



United States. As yet a few only are known, but ere long, I am confident, 

 the existence of others will be ascertained. Whenever investigators have 

 their attention drawn to a new class of antiquities, they endeavor to find 

 them, and are usrially successful in their efforts. 



Fig. 42 shows the appearance of a cupped block preserved in the 

 building of the Society of Natural History in Cincinnati, to which associa- 

 tion it was presented by the discoverer, Dr. H. H. Hill, a resident of that 

 city. His letters and a communication from Professor J. Mickelborough, 

 also of Cincinnati, enable me to give the following account: — 



The block was found by Dr. Hill during an archreological excursion, in 

 May, 1874, a mile and a half above Ironton, Lawrence County, Ohio, near 

 the bank of the Ohio. It was, indeed, washed by the water of that river, 

 and covered with debris that had fallen from the upper portion of the bank, 

 from which latter circumstance Dr. Hill concluded it had also rolled from 

 this higher level to the lower margin of the river-bank. Having bought 

 the block from the owner of the land, he had it removed from its position 

 and conveyed by steamboat to Cincinnati, where it arrived in June, 1874. 

 In the same year he presented it to the Cincinnati Society of Natural His- 

 tory. The block or boulder, which consists of coarse-grained dark-gray 

 sandstone, is three feet long, two feet and seven inches wide, and a foot 

 and a half high, and measures eight feet seven inches in circumfei'ence. It 

 weighs between a thousand and twelve hundred pounds. According to Dr. 

 Hill, the surface of the stone shows one hundred and sixteen cups, either 

 rounded or conical in shape.* Professor Mickelborough mentions one hun- 

 dred and twenty cups, which he describes as being circular in outline, and 

 apparently produced by attrition with some blunt implement. The average 

 diameter of the cups is an inch and a half, and their depth about half an 

 inch ; but some are five-eighths of an inch deep, and others again more 

 shallow. The inside of the cups, he says, is rather smooth, yet not as 



* For photograplis after which the illustration was executed, I am indebted to Dr. Hill aud Judge 

 M. F. Force, of Cincinnati. I had the stone drawn on wood in lead-pencil, and before handing over 

 the block to the wood-engraver, I sent a photograph of the drawing to Judge Force for comparison with 

 the original. He replied (January 10, 1681) as follows : '' I think this does very well as a representa- 

 tion of the cup-stone. Of course, there is an exaggerated distiuctneas in the cups — that is, the shadow 

 in the hollows is not so distinct, at least in our sunlight, as it is in the picture." — I hope the slightly 

 exaggerated distinctness of the cups, alluded to by Judge Force, will be deemed allowable, the more so 

 aa the boulder vma exposed to the action of water, and formerly doubtless exhibited more distinct cups 



