236 In Touch with Nature. 



vision, — that after the jasper had been mined it 

 was directly subjected to a hammering process 

 that determined the precise quality of the mass. 

 This was a necessary preliminary, for the imple- 

 ment-maker and the miner were not one and the 

 same person, or, if so, pursued the two occupations 

 at different times. 



Before considering the adjacent workshop sites, 

 let me prevent a possible misconception. Here is 

 riot the one sole source of supply from which the 

 Indians derived jasper, but, I take it, the principal 

 one. It is true a block of jasper, if pure and 

 faultless, that measured twenty feet across and six 

 feet in thickness, would make an enormous number 

 of arrow-points, but it is to be remembered that 

 in every such block there is a vast amount of 

 refuse flint that Indians could not use, and the 

 chips resulting from a single arrow-point equalled 

 usually a mass a hundredfold the size of the 

 finished implement. Then, too, we have proof 

 that jasper boulders from the bed of the river were 

 used by those Indians who lived far south of the 

 mine on Rattlesnake Hill, and that many a little 

 pebble was gathered for the purpose of making an 



