56 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



knife, though both these have been found quite as long, and it may 

 be best to consider it a digging implement for the present. Smaller 

 specimens are common, with a similar outline. An elliptical one of 

 drab flint, five and three quarters inches long, also came from Oneida 

 lake. Another, with straighter sides, is from Brewerton, at the foot 

 of the same sheet of water. This is of grey flint, and is seven and 

 three eighths inches long, and three and one half inches wide. This 

 would be called a knife but for its size. It is not equilateral, but while 

 one of the lateral edges is straight, the other is longer, and curves 

 gradually to meet it at the point. Quite a number are between five 

 and six inches long, coming from several places. 



Two fine leaf-shaped implements from the Susquehanna river 

 should be mentioned. One is from Nichols, and measures io| by 

 six inches. It was found 25 years ago. The other is from Owego, 

 and is a little smaller, being 10 inches long by four and three eighths 

 wide. It is of a light translucent flint, and was found 50 years ago, 

 just below the Susquehanna river bridge. 



A different form of flint implement was certainly used for digging, 

 although in a very moderate way. The form was often that of a 

 shouldered spear, but with the point rounded and polished by contact 

 with the earth. Fig. 149 is a good example from the Seneca river, 

 made of grey flint, and four inches long. Fig. 148 is another of 

 common flint, found near Rome, N. Y. This has no shoulder, and 

 may also have been used as a knife, but the narrow point is highly 

 polished by use. It is three and one quarter inches long. It is quite 

 probable that this was a secondary use; a broken point being re- 

 chipped, and then used in this way. It is even more likely that spears 

 and knives were sometimes used in digging. 



Fig. 150 is a pointed leaf-shaped implement, which one hesitates 

 to call either spade or hoe, so handsome is the material and so fine 

 the work. It is a fine orange jasper, five inches long and nearly 

 three and one half inches wide. It was found on Onondaga lake, 

 where others of less beauty occur. This figure and the following two 

 are reduced to three fourths of the actual size. Others, of the same 

 general shape as the last, are less pointed. 



Some broad, thin, and celt-like chipped sandstones are often now 

 classed as spades, and occur on some village sites. They would do 



