668 How our Ancestors in the Stone Age [November, 
implements found in Denmark, Palestine, Japan or South Amer- 
ica. The stones used might differ, but the mode of manufacture 
and general shape are nearly always the same. How our pre- 
historic ancestors could have made these stone implements ages 
before the discovery of the use of bronze or iron, has been the 
subject of many speculations among archzologists, and many 
theories have been advanced in support of these speculations. 
The general conclusion has been that they were chipped into the 
shapes we find them by blows from small stone hammers. It is, 
however, proper to state that Mr. John Evans, Sir John Lubbock, 
Mr. A. Morlot and other writers on prehistoric remains, have 
suggested that the observations of travelers, as to the modes pur- 
sued by savage nations in similar work, might afford a correct 
solution. 
The theory that they were manufactured into the shapes we 
find them by blows from stone hammers, was generally received 
until after the publication, in the Overland Monthly, of the obser- 
vations of Mr. E. G. Waite and the late B. P. Avery, and in the 
Smithsonian reports of a letter of Gen. George Crook, all of 
whom had had an opportunity to observe Pacific Coast Indians 
manufacture stone implements and chip them into perfect shapes 
without the aid of stone hammers. As, however, these Indians 
used iron or steel in their work, obtained from white men, it was 
thought they might have changed the processes pursued by their 
ancestors. From a late newspaper paragraph I see that Mr. F 
H. Cushing, who is connected with the Smithsonian Institution, 
by independent observation has arrived at the conclusion that the 
stone implements were not chipped into shapes by blows, but 
that the small flakes were broken out by pressure, and that to 
prove his theory he made a flint chisel, chipping it into shape by 
pressure with the aid only of a piece of hard wood. 
Having had an opportunity to see a stone arrowhead made by 
a man, practically stiil living in the stone age, without the aid of 
any implement other than those found in a state of nature about 
him, and taking notes at the time of each act of manipulation 
and every process, I have thought that a record of what I saw, 
added to those made by other observers, might have some value 
in determining the processes used in similar work by our re- 
_ mote savage ancestors. 
n. Prior to the close of the Modoc war, the Wintoons or Cloud- 
. 
