Human Foot-Prints in Solid Lin lesione. 



31 



The precise character of the tools which may have been em- 

 ployed, we cannot determine ; but this seems; evident; a people 

 capable of fashioning figures of porphyry, arrc vheads of flint, and 

 mortars of granitic rocks, must have had tools capable of excava- 

 ting a fraction of an inch out of a small suiface of limestone. 

 I have in my possession, an axe found aniongs t the antiquities of 

 this country, wrought out of a boulder composed of hornblende 

 and minute crystals of felspar ; a rock which yields with great 

 difficulty to the knife. This Indian relic has an admirable finish, 

 shows not the smallest scratch or tool mark, reflects light, and is, 

 to the touch, smooth as polished marble. I havo endeavored here 

 to represent it. (Fig. 4,) that the reader may judge of the symmetry 



Fiff. 4. 



Indian axe, of hornblende rock. 



it exhibits, the fine edge to which it is brought and the labor 

 necessary to work so well-finished an instrument out of so hard 

 a material. The race that could make such an axe out of a tough 

 hornblende boulder, may well be conceived capable of engraving 

 on a limestone slab impressions as skilful and highly finished as 

 those before us ; more especially as much of the finish observable 



