INDIAN NETSINKERS AND HAMMERSTONES. 143 
It is not my intention to enter here into a discussion concerning 
the views of the meritorious Swedish archeologist: I will merely 
state my opinion in regard to the probable use of the hammer- 
stones from the Susquehanna valley. That these latter were em- 
ployed as hammers tannot be doubted, since they show the most 
distinct traces of violent contact with hard substances; yet, 
according to my view, it was almost impossible to employ them 
immediately in fashioning flint implements. They are by far too 
clumsy, and possess too much roundness on all sides to have been 
the tools for fabricating arrowheads and other delicate articles of 
flint.* Not even the rude notches in the netsinkers could have 
been produced by their immediate application. Nevertheless, they 
may have served, besides fulfilling other purposes, as codperating 
tools in the manufacture of flint implements. r. Catlin 
described the method employed by the Apaches and other western 
tribes in making flint points for arrows and spears. The work, he 
states, is performed by two persons, one of whom holds the piece 
of flint to be operated upon in the left hand and places with the 
right hand a chisel or punch (made of a tooth of the sperm-whale) 
against the protuberances of the flint, which are to be removed, 
while his assistant strikes the chisel on the upper end with a 
mallet of hard wood and thus flakes off the projecting points. 
This process is continued until the article has acquired the desired 
shape.t+ <A similar method, perhaps, was in use among certain 
Indians inhabiting the eastern parts of North America, and in 
this case the hammerstones may have replaced the wooden mallets 
mentioned by Catlin. , 
Yet while I doubt the immediate application of these heavy 
hammerstones in the manufacture of flint points, I do not deem it 
altogether improbable that they were directly used as hammers for - 
chipping certain rude implements of graywacke, or a kind of tough 
slate, which occur in great abundance in the neighborhood of 
Muncy. These implements are of various shapes, mostly wedge- 
like in form, and are sometimes quite large. Many of them have 
enaa a 
* Among my specimens from Muncy there is a hammerstone of flint, which may 
have been used directly in making arrowheads. It is a nearly round, somewhat 
stone. two ineh Tai Sane ae a = ce h 4 ors 
The edge or rather circumference is much battered by continued use. Similar flint 
hammerstones found in England, are figured on page 223 of Mr. Evans’ new work, 
“ The Ancient Stone Implements, Weapons, and Ornaments of Great Britain.” 
t Catlin: Last Rambles amongst the Indians, New York, 1867, p. 
La 
