1883.] Catlinite. 763 
northern part of Wisconsin ; color a little darker than the western 
variety; some specimens are dark ash colored.” According to 
the Geological Report of Wisconsin for 1877, pipestone occurs 
also in considerable quantities in Barron county. 
It will thus be seen that the native pipe makers were not lim- 
ited to one particular locality to procure their material. It is not 
to be supposed that all of these deposits were known to them in 
olden times, but detached fragments might have supplied them 
with material in many places. It is highly probable that pipe- 
stone has been used by the inhabitants of North America for 
centuries, and was perhaps obtained at first in small pieces from 
the drift of the Missouri and Dakota valleys, long before the 
Great Pipestone quarry was worked and previous to the discovery 
of the stone zz place. According to Dr. White,’ ledges of catlinite 
are found in the north-western corner of Iowa, and the red quartz- 
ite which overlies them is found scattered in boulders as far as the 
Missouri State line, a distance of over two hundred miles. Pro- 
fessor Chamberlin, State geologist of Wisconsin, writes, in a let- 
ter to Mr. Pratt, “ Catlinite occasionally occurs in our drift.” 
In reviewing the facts thus briefly stated it will be seen that 
the stone of Céteau des Prairies and the adjacent territory must 
have been employed by native sculptors for several centuries at 
least, and, in all probability, for a much longer period. The early 
Writers frequently allude to a peculiar substance commonly used 
by the Indians in the pipe manufacture, which without difficulty 
may be identified as catlinite. There can be no doubt that an 
extensive traffic was carried on in this material for a considerable 
length of time by the aboriginal tribes, extending from the At- 
lantic coast to the Rocky Mountain system, and from New York 
and Minnesota on the north to the Gulf of Mexico. The fact 
that objects of catlinite have been taken from Indian graves in 
the State of New York, and that others were found on the an- 
cient site of an abandoned village in Georgia, at opposite points, 
twelve hundred miles distant from the pipestone quarry of Minne- 
sota, reveals the great extent of intercommunication which form- 
erly existed amongst the North American peoples. When we 
consider the fact that many pipes of catlinite have been taken 
from the bottom of mounds from four to seven feet deep, where 
they were found in connection with cloth-wrapped copper axes 
1 Amer. NAT., Vol. 11, p. 644. 
