THE ARCHEOLOGICAL HISTORY OF NEW YORK 415 



the soft rock. At Cedars on Black lake are painted figures and 

 areas on the surface of a rock that rises sheer from the water. The 

 color is iron oxide and has withstood the Weather and the ravages 

 of time since the earliest settlers remember. The New York Indians 

 seem to have confined their inscriptions to more perishable materials 

 than the faces of clififs. 



Jasper. A variety of opaque chalcedonic silica. In color it varies 

 from light 3'ellowish to deep yellow, orange, red and brown. Some 

 forms are greenish and may be mottled with red. Indeed, one flake 

 of jasper may reveal several colors. This fact and its good chipping 

 qualities made jasper a favorite material for aboriginal implements. 

 Jasper quarries have been found in Lehigh, Bucks and Berks coun- 

 ties, Pennsylvania, where the material occurs in pockets. Several 

 hundred of these quarries show evidences of aboriginal working. 



Maps. For charting the locations of archeological localities col- 

 lectors will find the topographical sheets issued by the United States 

 Geological Survey particularly valuable. These maps may be pur- 

 chased from the Director, U. S. Geological Survey, Washington, 

 D. C. A request should be first made for a key map showing the 

 various quadrangles in New York that have been mapped. From 

 this key map, which is sent free, the particular section of the map 

 desired may be selected. 



In charting sites the characters used should be uniform v/ith those 

 in this bulletin. (See the county maps in part VI.) 



Metates. Metates are slabs of some sandy shale, limestone or 

 other tough rock having one or more surfaces slightly hollowed out 

 as a grinding surface for corn or other substance. Some are regular 

 in form or are slightly shaped but most of them follow the natural 

 fractures of the rock, the only modification being the surface depres- 

 sions. Most of them are subrectangular in form. An examination 

 of a considerable number of metates leads to the conclusion that the 

 substance pulverized upon them was cracked with the muller and 

 then rubbed with it into the desired fineness. Some metates have 

 grinding faces on both sides. Sometimes one face has a smaller and 

 deeper hollow ; in other instances it seems to have been an anvil face. 



Metates were probably used in shallow baskets of bark or upon 

 skins that caught the pulverized substance as it fell from the stone. 

 In this manner dry foods could be reduced or powdered, paint pig- 

 ments ground, burnt stone cracked for tempering potters clay and 

 various moist foods and raw fabrics, pulped. New York State 

 metates usually have saucer-shaped depressions, in this characteristic 



