54 THE AMERICAN MIDLAND NATURALIST 
ary uses. They were probably hammers, pounders and pol- 
ishers. Held with the convex side in the palm of the hand, 
they could be used to drive wooden stakes or to split wood 
with stone chisels, or to crack nuts or to bruise grain and 
fruits, or to grind paint on a flat stone. With sand or earth 
they made efficient polishers for dressing skins, and held edge- 
wise they served to trim flint weapons or to crack marrow- 
bones. One of these hammers must therefore have been an 
indispensable utensil in every household, and a well-made one 
of durable stone may have been an heirloom handed down for 
generations. 
“The second kind of hammer is of elongated form, round or 
oval in cross-section, and suited to be held in the hand, though, 
perhaps, in some cases lashed to a wooden_handle. It much 
resembles the ordinary stone axe or celt, but differs in having 
a blunt end, indented with blows, instead of an edge. This 
almond shaped hammer was employed to chip stones, to drive 
wedges, and to break nuts and bones. One example from 
Hochelaga has a, rough depression on one side, which may 
have been produced by hammering wedges with the-side in- 
stead of the end, or may have been intended to give a better 
hold to the end of the handle. Hammers precisely of this kind 
are found in the caves of Perigord and in Sweden. The sav- 
ages of all countries seem to have discovered that dioritic 
rocks, from the toughness of the crystals of hornblende which 
they contain, are specially suited for the formation of these 
hammers, so that wherever greenstone can be found it is em- 
ployed. 
“The third and most artificial kind of stone hammer is that 
with a groove around it, by means of which it could be at- 
tached to a handle or slung upon a tough withe. Such a ham- 
mer is sometimes merely an oval pebble with a groove worked 
around it, but some examples, especially those of the old 
mound builders, are elaborately grooved and carefully shaped; 
and there are some with two grooves, the working of which 
must have cost much labor. Some specimens are so small as 
to’ weigh only a few ounces, and one from the ancient copper 
mines of Lake Superior, now in the museum of the Geological 
Survey of Canada, is 1114 inches long, and weighs more than 
25 pounds.- The larger end of it has been much bruised and 
