AEEOW-SMOOTHEES. 199 



Utah to polish their arrows. The stone, however, was not heated, but held 

 in the hand and rubbed up and down the shaft of the arrow with consider- 

 able rapidity. He therefore thinks the term "arrow-smoother" would be 

 better than "arrow-straightener," and thinks that the longitudinal strise in 

 the grooves are such as would be made by rubbing the arrow-shaft with 

 the stone. Many of the specimens also — especially those of serpentine — 

 show no action of fire on their surfaces. In all that I have seen the grooves 

 retained their polish, which, probably, would not be the case had they been 

 exposed to fire. The shape of many of these articles is obviously intended 

 to conform to the hand; and to hold one of these stones in the hand, heated 

 sufficiently to straighten an arrow-shaft, would not be an easy task. Admit- 

 ting that they were not held in the hand, their shape seems to pre- 

 clude the idea that rhev could be retained in any particular position with 

 any degree of fixity One specimen obtained by Mr. Schumacher is in the 

 form of a double cone with rounded points; such a shape as this could hardly 

 have been chosen to serve as a straightener. An examination of Figs. 69 

 and 70 will indicate the different points regarding side wearing of grooves 

 and shape of implement. Professor Powell has informed me that he has 

 seen Indians straighten their arrow-shafts by heating them and then hold- 

 ing one end of the shaft between the teeth, straightening with the fingers. 

 Sometimes a bone or a horn straightener is used, but the shaft, not the im- 

 plement, was heated. 



These grooved stones are not peculiar to the Pacific coast. Mr. C. C. 

 Jones* gives a figure and description of a similar implement from Georgia, 

 which has two grooves crossing each other at right angles. The writer has 

 met with a single specimen from New Jersey that could safely be classed 

 with these Pacific coast implements. This form of implement does not 

 appear to occur in Europe, but Evansf figures a "rubbing-stone" found 

 in one of the Wiltshire barrows, and refers to others. He says of them, 

 " These instruments vary but little in shape, size, or character, being usually 

 of a truncated half-ovoid form, with a rounded groove along the flat surface, 

 and formed of sandstone." 



'Antiquities of the Southern Indians, p. 360, pi. xxii, fig. 1. 

 tStone Implements of Great Britain, p. 241, fig. 185. London, 1872. 



