58 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



was to chip the stone into the shape of the celt, when this could be 

 done. This might go no farther, for as a weapon of war it was 

 already serviceable, and perhaps in some of the arts of peace. If the 

 material was fine, it might afterwards be picked and polished. Often 

 the edge was ground before these things were done. The finish has 

 nothing to do with the age, for the rudest and most finished forms 

 may be found, side by side, on the same village site. Many show all 

 three processes in the unfinished implement. The work might go 

 on for years, at intervals, the weapon being used nearly all the time. 

 As the difference is thus only one of finish, except in flint celts, no 

 illustrations need be given of those of common stone. 



A micaceous stone is frequent on a few sites, showing no signs of 

 work, but presenting such resemblances to finished celts that one can 

 hardly doubt its use. It would soon lose all marks of human skill. 



In the examination of Iroquois sites, one can hardly fail to observe 

 how the stone age was on the wane, in this family at least. With rare 

 exceptions stone implements were rude, and there was neither the 

 variety nor beauty in articles of stone everywhere seen among their 

 New York predecessors. Bird amulets, gorgets, stone tubes, 

 scrapers, drills, and banner-stones were already things of the past. 

 Arrows were small, comparatively few, and mostly of one form. 

 Stones were still used in grinding corn and cracking nuts, but the 

 wooden pestle and mortar had their established place among pros- 

 perous people. Stone vessels were forgotten, and bone and horn 

 took the place of flint. Still, stone was necessary, and the ungrooved 

 axe was often finely finished. 



There are a few chipped celts of flint, often ground at the edge, but 

 ground flint is rare in this country. Fig. 154 is a good example, 

 coming from Onondaga lake. It is of common hornstone, two and 

 three quarters inches long, seven eighths wide, and five eighths of an 

 inch thick. It is ground to a moderately sharp edge at both ends. 

 A broad edged one of chalcedony, three and five eighths inches long, 

 comes from Oswego Falls. Fig. 155 is of grey flint, two inches long, 

 one inch wide, and nine sixteenths thick. The cutting edge is neatly 

 chipped, and one surface is much flatter than the other. This is from 

 Onondaga lake. A much larger one of grey flint, comes from the 



