TUBULAR PIPES. 131 



S. Bowers at Santa Barbara, Cal., and is now in the National Museum. 

 (No 20218.) 



Although there is not the same artistic skill displayed in the shaping, 

 finishing-, and ornamentation of these pipes, that is exhibited in the carving 

 of the animal pipes of the Moundbuilders and of some more modern 

 Indian tribes, the ingenuity exercised in successfully producing these 

 elongated, conoidal-shaped pipes was very considerable, and a study of 

 the series as such with reference to the probable method of drilling or other- 

 wise perforating these stone tubes is desirable. 



The material of which they are made, whether steatite, talcose slate, 

 or serpentine, is not difficult to work, and is, we believe, more easily cut 

 and worked when newly quarried than after long exposure. From the 

 fact that many large vessels of the same material were made by the same 

 people, and that many of these pipes are of unusual lengths, it is probable 

 that newly-detached masses of bed-rock were chosen exclusively. Even 

 at present these articles are easily cut with flint flakes, and the material 

 readily yields to the rotating motion of a flint drill. Presuming that the 

 makers of these pipes were not in possession of any metal implements, 

 which, in fact, would scarcely be better adapted to the purpose, it is prob- 

 able that in the pipes we have an explanation of the uses to which some 

 of the flint knives already described (Plate IV) and the large drills, as Figs. 

 13 and 14, were put. 



From the finished exteriors of Fig. 6, Plate VIII, and Fig. 5, Plate IX, 

 it will be seen that the pipe was first shaped, and subsequently drilled, 

 inasmuch as these two specimens are symmetrically finished, and even 

 polished ; yet the drilling has been only partially completed ; in Fig. 6, 

 Plate VIII, being scarcely more than an inch in depth; in the longer 

 example, for about one-third of its length. These specimens are instruc- 

 tive, in reference to the method of manufacture, in thus showing that they 

 were first shaped ; and the series of short incised lines, extending longi- 

 tudinally, yet crossing each other at irregular distances, are evidently tool- 

 marks. The stone, thus cut from time to time, and subsequently rubbed, 

 would soon be reduced to the desired shape, but the final polishing has in 

 every instance failed to wholly obliterate the last marks of the flint knife 

 that probably was used. 



