50 GEOLOGY OF OHIO. 



the handle was placed against one face. Spades had one end inserted in 

 the end of a stick. The handles of all implements were firmly iastened 

 with thongs, rawhide, or sinew. Pestles for pounding corn or acorns 

 varied in length and shape to fit the mortars; these were flat or dished 

 stones, or deep cavities in boulders and stumps or wooden blocks. 

 Among the commoner relics are slabs or angular fragments of sandstone 

 with hemispherical depressions, sometimes only one, sometimes thirty or 

 forty, from an inch to two inches in diameter, pecked or drilled in them; 

 slabs have them on both faces, rougher blocks only on one side. The 

 purpose of these cup-stones is unknown; theories have been advanced 

 that the cavities were for grinding paint, holding nuts to be cracked, con- 

 taining punk or wood-dust to be ignited by rapid revolution of a stick, 

 steadying the lower end of a spindle, or supporting a drill for boring 

 pipes, tubes, and other large and thick objects; and that where friction 

 would be a hindrance to the work, rawhide well greased, was fitted closely 

 to the sides of the depression. There may be a measure of truth in all 

 these conjectures; none of them is applicable to one-tenth of the speci- 

 mens. 



In mpking pottery, mussel shells or quartz pebbles were beaten 

 fine and either one, but never both together, mixed with clay; the com- 

 pound was thoroughly kneaded, molded into form, dried in the open air, 

 and then burned. None of it was glazed; and it is doubtful whether 

 any was painted. 



As a rule the rough flint disks found cached, sometimes in considera- 

 ble quantities, are only unfinished implements, or cores from which flakes 

 are to be split off and worked up as needed ; but many of them are dulled 

 or polished around the edge as if used for cutting or scraping. They 

 may have answered for dressing skins, but would be difficult to handle, 

 or to utilize for any other purpose. 



Flint — in the popular meaning of the word — was indispensable to a 

 people ignorant of iron. For an}^ weapon or tool requiring a keen edge 

 or sharp point, as knives, arrows, spears and such things, no other stone 

 could replace it. Hatchets, digging-tools, and, to a small extent, orna- 

 mental objects were also made of it. Worked pieces are scattered every- 

 where, in the greatest profusion; in some localities bushels of them ma} 7 

 be, or have been, gathered on a space of a few acres. Only the smaller 

 ones were for arrow-points; few so used among modern tribes are as much 

 as two inches in length, and any that long are very slender. Solid flesh 

 is almost as difficult to penetrate as rubber; few men have the strength 

 to draw a bow that would drive a wide or thick flint into the body of a 

 man or large animal. The thicker, larger specimens were probably spear, 

 lance, or club-heads; the thinner, knives; the long, slender ones, drills or 

 perforators, though the latter, if for use in skins or leather, were com- 

 monly made of bones ground to a sharp point. 



It is a reasonable supposition that small, triangular points, which 

 would remain in the wound when the shaft was pulled out, were used in 



