THE STONE AGE OF NORTH AMERICA. 79' 



use would be a stone. Even now a wagoner with broken cart looks around 

 naturally for a stone to pound with, and so mend his ways. He picks up a 

 stone on occasion as his ancestors did on most occasions. For the moment 

 he is in the Stone age. And he uses what the earliest man must have un- 

 doubtedly used, a stone just as it is. There must have been a time when 

 men picked up such stones as came in their way at the moment with which 

 to throw at animals, to break their food, to injure their fellow-men. Such 

 stones, unaltered by use, can no longer be identified. 



It is easy to see how, through long lapses of time, men continued to 

 select stones, with an ever-increasing care as to their shape and size. The 

 best to fling, the surest to hit, the sharpest to cut, were picked out, assorted 

 in leisure moments, stored for future use. The hunter, meeting with game, 

 could find no stone suited to bring it down at the moment, and so came at 

 last to carry this primitive shot about with him in his hunting. The way 

 from such a process, and a mode of improving the best of these stones by 

 an artificial changing of their shape and size, were clearly pointed out by 

 experience. And there must have been a gain in the process to such an 

 inventive tribe. No more were long searches for properly-sized stones 

 necessary. By means of harder stones others were chipped and shaped, 

 and so much time was gained from looking for stones and devoted to obtain- 

 ing food. And tribes using artificially-shaped stones must have had a 

 superiority over those who relied on what natural stones they found at the 

 moment. They stood in less danger of starvation. In the absence of other 

 remains, the presence of roughly-fashioned stones will be the earliewt reli- 

 able trace we shall find of the existence of men. In Europe such stones 

 have been found and described by several observers. In North America 

 we owe their discovery to the zeal of Dr. C. C. Abbott, aided in funds for 

 excavation by the Peabody Museum of Archaeology, of Cambridge^ Massa- 

 chusetts. 



North American rough-stone implements vary little in size and pattern, 

 although, when we examine all the kindred rough-stone implements of 

 the world yet known, we see that, as a class, they become gradually more 

 determinate in their shape and the chipping more regular; they come 

 more into the shape of spear-heads, and, perhaps, large arrow-points. 

 Above the rough-stone implements we find those of p9lished stone ; a de- 

 parture showing that man was no longer satisfied with his first rude fash- 

 ioning of his implements. Then Ave find the metals; and of these copper, 

 being more pliable, is first beaten cold and worked into shape for use. 

 Then the process of smelting and mixing with harder metals, such as iron, 

 came to be employed ; and to-day we are doing just what man has always 

 done, improving our tools so that we may better our condition. — Prof. A. 

 E. Grote, in Popular Science Monthly for March. 



