MORTARS, OR CUPS, OP STONE. 



80 



Fir,. 19. 



Dr. Yarrow thinks that Mr. Schumacher's statement as to the time 

 required to make a mortar with stone implements is much underrated ; for 

 while at San Iklefonso, N. Mex., he was requested by an Indian squaw to 

 loan her a geological hammer to hollow out a large block of stone (hard 

 sandstone), and at the end of a week, with constant work of several hours 

 daily, she had only made an excavation about two inches in depth. The 

 mortar was about twelve inches 

 in diameter and the hammer had 

 a steel cutting 1 edge 



Fig. 1 9 represents, of actual iM$ii[[]«\* 

 size, one of several diminutive KV<vA"'i 

 mortars or cups of sandstone, M&'fe/ -ate)' 

 which we have thought proper 

 to describe in connection with 

 the ordinary mortars, inasmuch 

 as they were doubtlessly used for 

 similar purposes ; although these 

 very small vessels were probably 

 designed and used principally for -'= 3 *22?p'§ 

 holdingandgrindingsmall masses 





OTM 



m 



m> 



.&s&~ 



s=s=m$^. 



. . Small stone mortar or cup. 



01 mineral pigment Pestlessmall 



enough to use in connection with these little mortars have been found asso- 

 ciated with them in the graves; although any ordinary cylindrical pebble 

 could have been used as a pestle. 



This mortar or cup shows the same careful workmanship that charac- 

 terizes many of the small cups of serpentine (see Plate VI, Figs. 1, 7, and 

 11), and is smoother upon its exterior surface than the large mortars above 

 described. The principal difference between this and the two following 

 specimens, and such cups made of serpentine as will be subsequently 

 described, is that the bottoms and sides at the base are much thicker, and 

 evidently intended to withstand the blows and crushing force of a pestle ; 

 and again the bottoms are rounded and not angular on the inside, so that 

 every particle of the contained pigment or other substance could be reached 

 and crushed by the curved end of the pestle. 



