SOME ABORIGINAL SITES. 433 
These objects of antler and of stone, which, as we have said, evidently were 
used for the same purpose, the hooks being with one or with the other class 
indiseriminately, are shown in Figs. 3, 4, 9, and Plates IX, X, XI, which in- 
clude illustrations of all of both elasses found by us, some of the objects of stone, 
found broken ceremonially, having been restored. 
Judging that some use in common could be found for the hooked imple- 
ments and the objects of antler and of stone, it seemed to us at first that the 
correct solution of the problem might be that respectively they were netting 
needles and objeets used with them for spacing the meshes of the nets, variously 
called sizers, spacers, mesh-measurers, mesh-gauges, mesh-boards, mesh-blocks. 
Hereafter in this report, for convenience and not because we are fully con- 
vinced they are such, we shall designate the hooked implements as needles and 
the objects found with them as sizers. 
We were aware that we had to face two probable objections in connection 
with our determination, namely, the orifices in the ends of the needles, and the 
perforations in the sizers, neither of which seem absolutely necessary for the 
use to which the needles and sizers were assigned. 
The hollow part in the needles we considered to be a receptacle for some 
adjunet, perhaps purely decorative; and the perforation in the sizers to have 
been made for the reception of a handle, knowing that the Eskimo of Alaska have 
handles on their sizers, which, however, are of bone and all of one piece. More- 
over, we have found by experiment that a handle affixed to one of our sizers is 
of assistance in net-making with it, and, in addition, would afford a means for 
suspension much preferable to running a cord through the perforation and 
bringing it up along a side, since this would interfere with the work for which 
the sizer was intended. 
A section of net made by J. S. Raybon, captain of our steamer, with wooden 
models of a needle and sizer found by us, is shown in Fig. 1. In this net (where 
the knot is a half-hitch as used by civilized peoples in net-making and, according 
to Mason, by some modern Indians) the hooked needle, not used as a bobbin 
with the cord wound around an end of it, was a decided advantage in catching 
the cord and pulling it through the knot. Ву this process, of course, the entire 
length of cord employed must be drawn through each mesh, a comparatively 
slow but not prohibitive performance for a people who girdled a tree with fire, 
pounded out the charcoal, and kept on repeating this operation until the tree 
was felled. Besides we are not sure that cord of considerable length was pos- 
sessed by the aborigines in the far-off days of “The Indian Knoll." 
If, on the other hand, a hooked implement were to be used as a combination 
bobbin and needle, the hook would at least be of no evident advantage in the 
kind of net-making above described. 
after learning the specific gravity (2.765) I am compelled to conclude that they are probably of a 
silicious character. The objects are decidedly harder than any variety of serpentine I have ever 
seen." : 
