142 INDIAN NETSINKERS AND HAMMERSTONES. 
the outline of a more or less elongated ellipse. Their only arti- 
ficial alteration consists in two small pits or cavities, so placed as 
to form the centres of the opposite broad sides of the pebble. In 
these cavities the workman placed the thumb and middle finger of 
the right hand, while the forefinger pressed against.the upper 
circumference of the stone. Figure 32 (two views) is a half-size 
drawing of one of these hammerstones, and may serve to repre- 
sent their general character. The original of Figure 32, however, 
is one of the larger specimens, measuring a little more than five 
inches in longitudinal diameter, and weighing one pound and ten 
ounces. Most of the hammerstones are smaller and lighter, aver- 
aging about a pound in weight. My smallest specimen, almost 
circular and with a diameter of two inches and three-quarters, 
weighs only half a pound. Concerning the cavities on the oppo- 
site sides, I will state that the makers evidently chiselled them out, 
as it were, with a tool of hard stone, doubtless a pointed flint, for 
which reason they sometimes appear rough and irregular. In the 
more finished specimens, however, they exhibit regular cup-like 
concavities, obviously produced by grinding. In some instances 
the depressions are so shallow that they almost escape observation, 
while they reach in other cases from eight to nine millimetres into 
the stone, and thus afford the hand a firm hold. Yet quite a num- 
ber of the hammerstones under notice exhibit, instead of the cup- 
shaped cavities, on the opposite broad sides, roughly ground faces, 
sometimes several inches in diameter, and answering well the 
purpose of allowing the hand a secure grasp of the stone. Many 
of the hammerstones bear the distinct traces of use, being battered 
and crumbled at the circumference; and a few of the specimens 
in my possession are even burst as far as the centre by the force 
of the blows dealt with them. The material of the hammerstones 
of Muncy is a tolerably hard stone consisting of rounded quartz 
grains, apparently a metamorphic quartz, or quartzite. 
In Europe, it is well known, similar hammerstones occur, which 
have been called Tilhuggerstene by Danish archzologists.* Prof. 
Nilsson has minutely described these implements, and tried to 
prove they had been used in chipping weapons and tools of flint. 
* Drawings of European hammerstones resembling eke of the Indians are found 
in the following geri basin on: The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia (London 
1868), Pl. I, Fig. 1; Worsaae: Nordiske Oldsager etc. open inet 1859), Figs. 32, 33; 
Stevens: Flint t Chips (London 1870), Fig. a Evans: The Ancient Stone Implements, 
164. 
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