614 



NATURE 



[April 2^ 1880 



the best of these undertook to make, in Mr. Redding's 

 presence, a stone arrow head, using only such tools and 

 implements for this purpose as were in use by the Indians 

 before their contact with the white man. Promptly at the 

 time appointed the old man, Consolulu, appeared, grey- 

 haired, and though between sixty-eight and seventy-two 

 he was still erect and vigorous. He brought, tied upon a 

 deer's skin, a piece of obsidian weighing about a pound, 

 a fragment of a deer's horn, split from a prong lengthwise, 

 about four inches in length and half an inch in diameter 

 and ground off squarely at the ends ; this left each end a 

 semicircle, besides two deer prongs with the points 

 ground down into the shape of a square sharp-pointed 

 file, one of these being much smaller than the other. He- 

 had also with him some pieces of iron wire tied to wooden 

 handles and ground into the same shapes. These, he 

 said, he used nowadays in preference to the deer prongs, 

 simply because they did not require such constant sharp- 

 ening. Holding the piece of obsidian in the hollow of his 

 left hand, he placed between the first and second fingers 

 of the same hand the split piece of deer's horn first 

 described, the straight edge of the split horn resting 

 against one-fourth of an inch of the edge of the obsidian, 

 this being about the thickness of the flake he desired to 

 split off, then with a small round water-worn stone which 

 he had picked up, and which weighed perhaps a pound, 

 he with his right hand struck the other end of the split 

 deer's horn a sharp blow. The first attempt resulted in 

 failure ; a flake was split off, but it was at the same time 

 shattered to fragments. The next blow was successful, a 

 perfect flake was obtained, and a third was equally so. 

 Now squatting on the ground, sitting on his left foot, his 

 right leg extended in tailor-like fashion, he placed in the 

 palm of his left hand a piece of thick, well tanned buck- 

 skin ; it was thick but soft and pliable ; on this he laid the 

 obsidian flake, holding it firmly in its place by the first 

 three fingers of the same hand ; the elbow was steadied 

 on the left knee. In his right hand he took the larger of 

 the two deer prongs and commenced to reduce one edge 

 of the circular form of the flake to a straight line with the 

 thumb of the right hand resting on the edge of the left 

 hand as a fulcrum. The point of the deer prong would be 

 made to rest on about an eighth of an inch or less of the 

 edge of the flake, then with a firm pressure of the point a 

 conchoidal fragment would be broken out, almost always 

 of the size desired. This operation was repeated until in 

 a few moments the flake was reduced to a straight line on 

 one edge ; by rubbing this on the side of the deer horn 

 the sharp edge was worn down. Next, the flake was 

 turned end for end and the chipping renewed ; when com- 

 pleted care was taken that the cutting edge was left in the 

 centre. It was now plain that the straight edge thus 

 made was to be one side of the long isosceles triangle, 

 the form of the arrowheads which is used by the tribe. 

 The other side was formed in the same manner and next 

 the base. The chipping out of the slot by which the 

 arrow head is firmly bound by deer tendon to the shaft 

 was the simplest and most rapid portion of the work. It 

 had taken forty minutes to split the two flakes from the 

 obsidian mass and to form one of them into the arrow 

 head. The detailed account of this most interesting pro- 

 cess will be found, with illustrations, in the November 

 number of the American Naturalist. 



REV. JAMES CLIFTON WARD, F.G.S. 

 QUR geological readers will learn with sincere regret 

 ^— ' that one of the most earnest of the band of " workers " 

 in this country passed away on April 15, aged 37. Early 

 adducing a taste for science, Mr. Ward was sent to the 

 Royal School of Mines in 1861, studying in the Geological 

 Division, and obtaining the Associate=hip in 1864. In 

 the following year he joined the staff of the Government 

 Geological Survey, and was sent down to the Yorkshire 



coalfield, in the survey of which he took an active part. 

 Under the superintendence of Prof. Green he contributed to 

 the elucidation of the geology of seven ordnance quarter 

 sheets, including at least twenty- three maps of Yorkshire, 

 on the scale of 6 inches to the mile, to many Horizontal 

 and Vertical Sections explaining the structure of the coal- 

 field, and furnished information included in the Survey 

 Memoirs on the Dewsbury and Huddersfield district, 88, 

 N.E., in 1871, the Burnly Coalfields in 1875, and the 

 "Geology of the Yorkshire Coalfield" in 1878, and was 

 called before the Royal Coal Commission to give to 

 them the results of his labours in that coalfield. In 1869 

 Mr. Ward was transferred to the Survey of the English 

 Lake District, then commencing under the superinten- 

 dence of Mr. Aveline, and we henceforth see Mr. Ward 

 in a new light. Hitherto conscientious work and indefati- 

 gable industry had alone characterised him ; but so soon 

 as he was surrounded by the scenery of the Lakes, and 

 breathed its exhilarating atmosphere, he developed, in 

 addition to these qualities, a rare appreciation of its 

 beauties, alike present in sunshine and in storm, not far 

 removed from that " being one with nature " that is so 

 marked a characteristic of the little band of poets which, 

 in the time that has just gone by, have rendered this 

 district, classic ground for the student of English literature. 

 Keenly enjoying the impressions received from moor and 

 mountain, the search after their origin, the elucidation of 

 their past, and the restoration of their physical geology were 

 ever present in his mind, pursued with a zest and an 

 industry that only can be realised by those who have 

 witnessed it. To pick up a line or clear up a doubtful point 

 he would retrace his steps up the roughest and steepest 

 ground, after a long day's tramp, at a speed that proved 

 the curiosity and interest that he felt in its solution, and 

 after the longest and hardest day in the field we have 

 seen him working at his microscope into the small hours 

 of the night, whilst early the next morning he was ever 

 ready for fresh expeditions, in which no fatigue could 

 check his interest and no discomfort try his good nature. 

 The results of his labours in the Lake District are em- 

 bodied in the " Keswick Quarter-Sheet " of the Geological 

 Survey and the accompanying memoir on " The Geology 

 of the Northern Part of the English Lake District," pub- 

 lished in 1876, and in various official maps and sections, 

 as well as in papers in the Journal of the Geological 

 Society, the Geological Magazine, Popular Science Re- 

 view, Science Gossip, and Nature. To more fully under- 

 stand the history of the volcanic rocks of his favourite 

 Borrowdale, he undertook a journey to Italy to study 

 Vesuvius and other volcanoes in that region. He spared 

 neither time, cost, nor labour in microscopic sections 

 of rocks and their chemical analyses, to aid his results in 

 the field, and though some German petrographers have 

 questioned some of his results worked out in the labora- 

 tory, we doubt whether any future observer will be able to 

 suggest any improvement or change in the elaborate net- 

 work of boundary lines covering the maps of the northern 

 Lake District. 



In his papers on the Lake District he pointed out 

 the radiate arrangement of the ice from the higher 

 grounds during the Glacial Epoch, and the fact that though 

 the rock-basins were scooped out by ice, the amount 

 denuded is an exceedingly small proportion of the entire 

 valley, which was the product of a long period of denuda- 

 tion, and that the district afforded no evidence of a uni- 

 versal ice-cap moving across it in one direction. In his 

 petrographical papers he deduces from " the liquid cavities 

 in quartz-bearing rocks " that the granitoid rocks of the 

 Lake District were consolidated at a depth not greater 

 than 30,000 feet. Comparing the modern volcanic rocks 

 of Vesuvius and Naples with the old lavas of the Lake 

 District and North Wales, he refers the latter to the 

 felstone group, and those of Cumberland to a gf°"P 

 midway between the felstone and the basaltic ; in both 



