THS 
AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
Vol. VI.— NOVEMBER, 1872.— No. ll. 
EEEO D ON 
NOTES ON ABORIGINAL RELICS KNOWN AS 
i « PLUMMETS.” 
BY JOHN G. HENDERSON. 
Ar various points in the United States from the Atlantic Ocean 
to the Pacific, the curious aboriginal relics which form the subject 
of this paper have been found. In the absence of any other name 
for them they have been generally designated as “Plummets,” a 
name suggested by their similarity to the implements of that 
name, used by civilized man, for the purpose of determining 
perpendicular and horizontal lines. They are made of copper, 
stone and iron ore, and are found both upon the surface of the 
ground and at various depths in the earth, sometimes as many as 
thirty feet below the surface. They have been found in the 
mounds of Ohio, at the foot of the “ Bluffs” of the Mississippi in 
apparently undisturbed drift clay, and in the auriferous deposits of 
able Mountain, California. 
A ‘singular almond-shaped flint implement, found among the 
other relics. of art of the mound builders, for a long time puz- 
zled archeologists, but at length the problem was solved by 
finding a number of them in an Ohio mound, lying side by side, 
Indicating that by having strips of wood securely fastened on 
each side, they had once formed part of a sword-like weapon, like 
What was found in the hands of the natives when Cortez landed in 
Mexico, and proved so effective, that a man could be cut in two with 
3 i aa dela i a al ARREST SLES SRN EEE 
SCIENCE, i rding to the Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by the PEABODY ACADEMY OF 
n the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
AMER. NATURALIST, VOL. VI. 41 (641) 
