352 



ON THE CONTJCjSTTS OF A KOCK KETHEAT 



these advantages, the relics being nnmeroas, varied, and illustrative of a restricted 

 locality, occupied perhaps not less than two thousand years, if we may judge from 

 the thirty inches of black mold formed by decaying vegetation,'^' and the corroded 

 condition of many of the arrow-heads and chisels occurring at various depths. 



The place was adapted for the residence of savages. The base of the clitf at the 

 river mai'gin left a defensible passage-way ; on the north the land spread iuto arable 

 soil; a large spring about 170 yards north of the shelter offered good water, and near 

 it was a trap (dolerite) bolder of the drift of several tons weight (from the Conewago 

 Hills ten miles to the north) — with a depression adapted for grinding corn — pei'haps 

 in part artificial, or deepened by use. Here then were shelter, defense, convenience, 

 planting, hunting, boating, fishing in two streams, and forest. ,,,,, . 



Residing at the locality, it had been my intention for more than forty years to 

 search the recess for relics, and at length, in January, 1876, I began scraping with 

 a garden hoe, and soon turned up five fragments of pottery from the depth of a fev/ 

 inches. The next day a workman dug for me, but objects were scarce, the first being 

 an unbroken pebble adapted for throwing, of a kind of which many afterwards 

 occurred, either entire, or v/ith a chip broken ofi:' (PI. 12, Fig. 8), as if to try the 

 texture for arrow points. An idea soon spread that the search was for money, which 

 caused a rush and prevented the proper investigation by strata. However, as there 

 was about the ordinary type of Pennsylvania forms, the result has not been mate- 

 rially altered. ,-. ^ 



Although hammer-stones were possibly the first stone implements, yet from the 

 importance of a cutting edge, we may be allowed to surmise that the choosing of a 

 sharp fragment, the forming of a sharp margin, at first by blows, subsequently by 

 rubbing, and (not to lose the result of his labor or the independent use of his hands) 

 the supplying it with a pocket, suggested proprietorship to the savage, and made the 

 fiscal idea the first condition of civilization. 



V •• - , -f : ;., , ' ; 'K. CHAPTER I. 



'X^'i'' '.■ ' KNIVES. PL. 1. 



Stone implements which require a cutting or scraping edge, whether knives, 

 chisels, scrapers, borers, or arrow-heads, are of several kinds; the first includes 

 naturally sharp fragments, of which Fig. 16 may be an example; the second variety 



*The stain of the black mold is still visible upon the rock, and I have indicated its limit by lines of red paint, for 

 i'ntiire reference. Dr. Abbott (Am. Naturalist, Feb., 1870, p. 67) estimates that it requires thirteen centuries to accu- 

 mulate ten inches of vegetable mold. 



