1885.] The Stone Ax in Vermont. 1145 
grooved ax through others. In some specimens there is merely 
a notch on each side, in others a very slight groove, and so on 
till we have the typical grooved ax. The form of some of the 
celts renders the supposition that they were furnished with a han- 
dle very improbable, but others undoubtedly were attached, some 
in one way some in another, toa wooden handle. Whether the 
prehistoric Vermonter ever adopted the Australian custom of - 
imbedding the blunt end of his ax in a mass of pitch is not to be 
known, but the material for such a handle was at hand and may 
have been used. 
The average celt of the Champlain valley is about five inches 
long or a little more, and half as wide. The extremes are found 
in little hand‘axes not more than three inches long, and large 
and sometimes clumsy specimens twelve inches long, and rarely 
more. In the thickness there is found little relation to other 
dimensions; some of the longest celts are thinner than many of 
the shorter ones. In most cases the thickness is greatest near 
the middle of the length, though sometimes the thickness in- 
creases from the edge to the other end. The edge is always 
carefully worked, however rude the rest of the specimen, and it 
rarely shows the effects of hard usage. Most of the specimens 
are hammered over the entire surface, and not seldom they are 
smoothed and polished, but some are left just as they were cleft 
from a large mass, and show no sign of the workman except at 
the edge. In many respects archeological specimens from New 
England are greatly surpassed by those from the mounds of the 
West and other localities, but some of our Vermont celts will 
bear comparison with similar objects from any part of this coun- 
try or Europe. A very few copper celts have been found in Ver- 
mont, but none of any other material except stone, and of these 
latter only will this article treat. 
Without pretending to establish a permanent classification of 
these objects, but only for present convenience, they will be con- 
sidered in several groups, which will be determined chiefly by 
form. Our first group will include such as are linear in outline, 
the length being several times the, width. Some of these are 
of large size and rude in finish, while others are carefully finished, 
and in a very few cases there is an attempt at carving in the form. 
of one or more knobs or ridges. Fig. 1 illustrates this variety, 
and in this as in the other figures, the design is to exhibit an 
