POLISHED STONE ARTICLESJJSED BY THE NEW YORK ABORIGINES 9 



never penetrated this State. This is the case with the grooved axes 

 and chungke stones. On the other hand the makers of some slate 

 knives, amulets, and other articles here, never penetrated the South. 

 So to speak, there was an aboriginal Mason and Dixon's line. 



That many articles required a long time to finish, seems plain, 

 and yet this time may have been overestimated, as in the early ideas 

 of arrow making and other primitive arts. A dexterous workman 

 went on confidently, and his simple tools were sometimes far more 

 efficient than we think. Skill was more than instruments. Some- 

 times the stone was wrought while fresh and soft, hardening after- 

 wards by exposure and use, as in the case of the Cherokee pipes; 

 but a good flint or gritty stone cut many materials with great 

 rapidity and ease. The fine finish may have been much slower 

 work, reserved for a master hand. Drilling was done in various 

 ways and most gorgets seem to have been perforated with flint. 

 Banner stones were sometimes partially drilled with this, as appears 

 in some unfinished pieces. Sometimes a tubular drill was used, 

 as we find in the same way; sometimes a gouging process was em- 

 ployed. Precisely how the picking was done may be less plain, 

 but effective hard and sharp stones are not rare. Usually it is very 

 neat and uniform even where the material is hard. As polishing 

 was the last process it began with the most essential parts of the 

 implements as the cutting edge, where it often preceded the picking. 



That many early implements of polished stone were not used by 

 the later Indians, and indeed were unknown to them, is now well 

 understood. This, like the same fact in chipped stone, points to 

 a great and probably sudden change. They were not perpetuated 

 by descent, nor acquired by conquest, but were simply lost arts, 

 because there were intervals between the early and later comers. 

 The stone gorget, banner stone, amulet, tube, boat stone, slate 

 knife, grooved axe and gouge, had no place at all among the Iro- 

 quois, historic or prehistoric, yet all these occur more or less in 

 their ancient territory. These, too, were among the finest of Ameri- 

 can articles of polished stone, and yet were utterly unknown to 

 them, as far as appears. Thus, whoever was here before their com- 

 ing had little in common with them, except in the very simplest 



