406 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



ing stones and abrasive sands were most important to their indus- 

 tries. Without them many articles of bone and wood, not to mention 

 implements and ornaments of stone, would have been the more 

 difficult to make and polish. 



Grooved axes. The grooved axe is a widely distributed North 

 American implement having a great variety of forms. It is fairly 

 rare in New York State. The average form is a thick wedge having 

 a groove encircling it at a point about two-thirds the length from the 

 sharpened edge. The butt end is usually thick, wide and heavy, and 

 the bitt in the greater number of forms, the narrowest part of the 

 implement. Certain other forms have a wide blade. The groove in 

 most New York forms is at right angles to the long axis, but a few 

 forms occur where the groove slants at a more acute angle. The 

 material out of which grooved axes are made is almost without 

 exception some hard tough rock, as granite, syenite, quartzite, green 

 stone, tough limestone or trap. Some specimens are of hard shale 

 or sandstone. There is a considerable range in size and weight, some 

 specimens in New York weighing nearly lo pounds while others are 

 as light as 4 ounces. The average weight of specimens ranges from 

 I to 7 pounds. The groove in most specimens completely encircles 

 the axe but in others one narrow side is without it and has a flat- 

 tened place instead. This was the point upon which the handle 

 rested. Certain forms have a simple groove which is merely a 

 depressed channel surrounding or partly surrounding the axe ; other 

 specimens have heavy ridges bounding the groove. 



The outline of axe forms varies considerably, as shown in plate 

 125. Finely finished specimens are found in all these forms. 



Most grooved axes have only a rough finish and still show the 

 marks of the battering hammer that pounded them to shape. A few 

 specimens have a polish but even the most highly polished have the 

 groove left in a roughened state to afford a better hold of the handle 

 binding. 



See also Notched axes, Celts, Gouges, Adzes, and Grooved axes 

 under the Algonkian occupation, pages 60-62. 



Grooved club heads. These im])lements are among the rarer 

 forms of tools and weapons. They vary from natural pebbles that 

 have been grooved to beautifully formed and polished ovate stones 

 with carefully ground grooves. Some specimens appear to have 

 been reworked from grooved axes. Some show no abrasions, as if 

 they had been ceremonial clubs, while others by their battered ends 



