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NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



particular were fond of fossils as ornaments and sometimes placed 

 them in graves. Some modern Seneca collect them by the basketful 

 to put in graves, as among the Seneca of Newtown, Cattaraugus 

 reservation. Mr G. L. Tucker has in the Bufifalo Consistory Museum 

 a fine specimen of a large Spirifer drilled out as a pipe. He found 

 it on the Iroquois fort at Belmont, Allegany county. A seal pendant 



Fig. 56 Objects made from fossils, i is apparently a stamp and comes 

 from Broome comity; 2 is a pipe made from a fossil Spirifer and was found 

 by G. L. Tucker at Belmont, xi 



containing a fossil crinoid stem in the Willard Yager collection at 

 Oneonta came from Port Dickinson. Segments of crinoid stems are 

 sometimes found used as beads. 



Frauds. Every student of archeology will sooner or later come 

 across fraudulent specimens. They may either be in private col- 

 lections or offered for sale by a pretended finder. Stone articles as 

 gorgets and pipes seem to be favorites with counterfeiters. A few 

 dealers have made articles of bone. An experienced eye will soon 

 detect faked specimens. The faker generally forgets one or more 

 essential points, or makes his fabrication with some inconsistent 

 feature. Nearly all the various means used to age bone or stone 

 artificially may be detected and the marks of steel tools may be seen 

 with a magnifying glass. Dyes and stains w^ill wash off when the 

 specimen is put in boiling water. Every suspected specimen should 

 be washed in pure hot water as a preliminary test. 



It is needless to say that the maker of a fraud of this kind com- 

 mits a greater moral crime than the counterfeiter of money; for 

 the latter simply imitates a substance that affects knowledge only 

 slightly, while the maker of a fraudulent archeological specimen sets 



