74 THE UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA 



I remember a few years ago being in his region with two gentle- 

 men from Oklahoma City, looking up an oil proposition. We had 

 worked our way for half a mile along an escarpment covered with 

 mesquite and live-oak, and finally came out on a high pointt over- 

 looking a beautiful valley, now occupied by half a. dozen prosper- 

 ous farms. We had been picking up rejects and an occasional 

 arrow-head until our pockets were half full. On the extreme point 

 of the bluff where we sat down to rest there was evidence of an 

 old workshop. Fragments of flint were scattered over the surface 

 of the ground. We were talking about the old Indian, who, five 

 hundred thousand years before, must have been sitting where we 

 now sat, working at his trade. I happened to notice on the slopt 

 just below me, a fairly good arrow-head, and climbed down to get 

 it. While there I reached my hand back under the ledge on which 

 my companions were sitting, and on a little shelf picked up two 

 perfect specimens of flint arrow-heads which had evidently been 

 left there by their maker hundreds of years before. 



Another place which has been called to the attention of geolo- 

 gists the last few years, where material for implements is very 

 abundant, is the x\marillo gas field in the Panhandle of Texas. 

 Throughout this region there is a ledge of dolomite of Upper 

 Permian age, known as the Alibates dolomite. This ledge consists 

 usually of two members of hard white rock, resembling limestone, 

 separated by red shale. The total thickness of the ledges varies 

 from six to twenty feet. The upper part of the upper ledge of this 

 dolomite has been shanged in some unknown way until, in many 

 places, it now forms a fairly good quality of agate, so that it is 

 usually spoken of as "agatized dolomite". It is a very hard and 

 brittle, motttled or banded, varigated in color, usually with red and 

 brown pr '■dominating. 



Throughout a considerable part of northern Potter, southeast- 

 ern Moore , southwestern Hutchinson, and northern Carson coun- 

 ties, Texas, this dolomite is found scattered on the surface. A 

 considerable amount of the material has been shaped by the Indian 

 and now exists in the form of rejects. I think I am safe in saying 

 that one might in time, collect car loads of rejects made from this, 

 agatized dolomite. 



In addition to the four chief localities which I have mention- 

 ed, there are in the states of the Plains, several other sources from 

 which the Indians obtained material for implements. The lava 

 rock from which the extinct volcanoes of northeastern New Mex- 

 ico is sometimes sufficiently hard and brittle to form obsidian, and 



