EAT7.] NORTH AMERICAN BOULDERS WITH MORTAR-OAVITIES. 59 



worn until they meet. With one exception, these mortar-shaped excavations 

 are circular, and nearly as perfect, usually, as if laid out with dividers. 

 The exception is an oblong excavation, the greater axis measuring seventeen 

 inches, the shorter about eight inches. 



" The boulder has doubtless been used for this purpose a great length 

 of time, indicating the comparative stability of the tribe once living here. 

 I was unable to find the pestles which were used in these mortars. It was 

 the practice of the Santa Barbara Indians to bury pestles and other objects 

 with the dead, and I presume there was no exception in this case. 



"The smaller boulder measures about eleven feet by nine and a half 

 on the surface, rising to the height of six feet above the earth. It contains 

 eleven depressions, two or three of which seem to have been used as 

 mortars ; but the others, which are quite shallow, probably served some 

 other purpose. 



" In the canons and on the foot-hills along the Santa Inez range, I have 

 frequently met with boulders containing from one to three or four mortar- 

 excavations." 



It appears to me that some of the boulders and rocks called pierres a 

 bassins by French, and Muldensteine by German archaeologists, may be con- 

 sidered as stationary mortars. Their resemblance to undoubted American 

 mortars of this kind at least would lead me to that conclusion. M. Morlot, 

 for instance, describes such a block near the new road passing over Mount 

 Simplon (Canton of Valais). It has the shape of a rough column or a trunk 

 of a tree, ia one meter and five centimeters high, and ninety centimeters in 

 diameter. In the centre of its upper surface is a cavity of twenty-one 

 centimeters diameter and nine centimeters depth. There are three smaller 

 cavities on the same surface.* The height of the block and the dimensions 

 of the cavity certainly favor m}' view. Though I could furnish many 

 similar examples, I confine myself to the one just given, not wishing to 

 enlarge on a qviestion which must be decided by European archaeologists. 



* Morlot : Pierres k Ecuelles ; Mat^riaus, 1866, p. 258. — This periodical contains several articles 

 relating to stones with cavities, which apparently have served as moi-tars. — 



In reading Dr. L. Zapf s article " Die Muldensteine des Fichtelgebirges " in " Beitriige zur Anthro- 

 pologic nnd Urgeschichte Bayems" (Bd. Ill, S. 99), I could not help thinliing that the cavities described 

 by him might be, in part at least, the mortars in which the prehistoric jieople of that rfrgion pounded 

 fruits or cereals. 



