86 



ANTIQUITIES OF WISCONSIN. 



Fig. 54 represents a stone axe. These axes are worked to a sharp edge at one 

 end, and have a depression around the head for the handle. Although they all 

 have the same general form, there are no two exactly alike. The one figured must 

 have been used in the manner of a carpenter's adze. These are made of the hardest 



One third natural size. 



One half natural size. 



One half 

 natural size. 



stone, selected from boulders very nearly of the right shape, so as to require the 

 least labor. Some of them retain a portion of the natural polish of the boulder on 

 the head and edges. 



Figs. 55 and 56 represent a chisel-shaped instrument, which may have been 

 employed in taking off the skins of large quadrupeds; 



These stone chisels were perhaps made use of instead of the bone, in dressing 

 skins of the bison as is now practised by the wild Indians of the West. The last 

 process, termed graining, is p.erformed by the squaws, who use a sharpened bone, 

 the shoulder-blade or other large bone of the animal, sharpened at the edge, some- 

 what like an adze ; with the edges of which they scrape the fleshy side of the skin, 

 bearing on with the weight of their bodies, thereby drying and softening, and fitting 

 it for service. (Catlin's North American Indians, I, 45.) 



An image made of wood (Fig. 57) was discovered at Prairie village (Waukesha), 

 soon after its first settlement by the whites, and presented to me by Mr. C. F. 

 Warren. It is evident that it could have no very great antiquity; though it may 

 have been preserved and handed down for several generations. It is quite rudely 

 carved, the head very much flattened, and the general expression more that of a 

 monkey than of a man. 



burned, and often elaborately painted in brilliant and durable colors. The forms are generally very 

 regular, but there is no evidence of the use of the jDotter's wheel ; on the contrary, there is reason to 

 believe that the ancient processes have undergone little or no modification since the Conquest. The 

 pottery now generally in use among all classes in Central America, is of the Indian manufacture, and 

 is fashioned entirely by hand." — Squier's Nicaragua, 1852, II, 33t-8. 



