1 68 NEW YORK STATE MUSEUM 



the shaft must have a certain taper. The taper offsets to a con- 

 siderable degree the rotation of the extremes and has a well- 

 defined mechanical effect on the shaft. A well-tapered rod can not 

 be thrown small end foremost; if this is done it will turn in mid- 

 air and proceed large end foremost. 



Using a well-tapered shaft $ J / 2 feet long and i^g inches in 

 diameter at the head and about one-half of an inch at the tail and 

 placing a banner stone upon the tail, we conducted experiments in 

 javelin throwing. It was found that the thin wings of the banner 

 stone acted in a similar manner as the feathers do to an arrow. 

 The javelin thus arranged could be thrown with greater precision, 

 with greater poise and at least one-fourth farther, than a shaft 

 without the banner stone. Although the banner stone consumed a 

 certain amount of additional propulsive force, the advantage was so 

 great through the addition of poise, that the projecting force was 

 not expended in keeping up the wabbling flight. Besides giving 

 poise and adding distance, the banner stone gives the additional 

 advantage of greater weight, greater impact and greater speed. 



It would seem that objects of so brittle a subtance would not 

 stand the use of throwing. The writer, however, having made 

 one of soft steatite threw it more than fifty times in an ordinary 

 field with no breakage, except a slight one caused by the incomplete 

 insertion of the shaft. When this breakage was sustained the stone 

 was placed for experimental purposes with the wide end forward, 

 although the reverse seemed to be the more effective method. 1 



The banner stone thus employed on the spear shaft does not 

 break because the shaft strikes the ground at an acute angle, and 

 if it does not strike into the ground it has but a slight distance to 

 fall. 



Banner Stone as a Spindle Whorl 



By placing a shorter shaft in the hole of a banner stone another 

 experiment was conducted. The pick-shaped banner stone resem- 

 bles in miniature the war club of the modern Sioux and it will be 

 noted that many of these decorative clubs had comparatively 

 slender handles. By pushing the spindle through the banner stone 

 for some distance so that three to five inches protrude, we find, 

 by handling the arrangement, that there is a desire or tendency to 

 whirl the shaft, the weight of the banner stone making the com- 

 bination spin like a stem-heavy top. This gives rise to the idea of 



1 These experiments were conducted during April and May 1899. 



