The collection of the Bureau of Ethnology includes almost every type of stone implement or ornament, and as the investigations and explorations of the collaborators have extended over nearly all the eastern and central portions of the Mississippi valley, it furnishes a substantial basis for showing the geographic distribution of various forms of objects in use among the aboriginal inhabitants. It has not been deemed advisable to utilize material contained in other collections. Should this be don

The ordinary division into chipped and pecked or ground implements has been adopted: the former including all such as are more easily worked by flaking, and the latter including those made from stone suitable for working down by pecking into form with stone hammers or by similar means. The system of nomenclature in general use has been retained, as it is now familiar to students of North American archeology, and, while not entirely satisfactory in some respects, is perhaps as good as can be devi

As space would be needlessly occupied by attempting to name each county, the area from which specimens have been obtained is, for convenience, divided into districts. These divisions are for use in this article only, and are not intended as archeologic districts. In the tables given under each heading, the names of counties or districts show where the types described are obtained; the columns following show the number of specimens of each material mentioned in the collection of the Bureau. Where

The various forms of implements will now be considered. As stated above, the names given the various articles are those by which they are usually known; but it may be well to define some of the terms used. In the grooved axes, edge refers to the cutting portion; blade , to the part below the groove; poll or head , to that above the groove; face , to the wider or flat portion of the surface; side , to the narrower part; front , to that side farther from the hand, and back , to the side nearer the

The implements known as grooved axes seem to be of general distribution throughout the United States; being, so far can be learned from various writers, much more numerous east of Mississippi river than west of it. It must be remembered, however, that thousands of diligent collectors have carefully searched for such things in the east, while in the west little attention has been paid to them; consequently, deductions are not to be made concerning their relative abundance or scarcity, until furth

The chipped implements in the Bureau collection, are nearly always made of some form of flint or similar chalcedonic rock, as it is easily chipped and can be brought to a keen edge or point. Sometimes quartz, quartzite, argillite, or even a more granular rock is used; but this is infrequent, and is due to the scarcity of the more desirable material. In the spades and hoes first to be considered the flaking seems to have been by percussion mainly, if not entirely; the same method appears to have

In the remaining portion of this paper, which will treat of the smaller chipped implements, a plan somewhat different from that of the preceding part will be followed. As already stated, these specimens are almost invariably made of some form of flint; this term including chalcedony, basanite, jasper, chert, hornstone, and similar rocks. So common is its use that the term “flints” is gradually being adopted as a name for all the different classes of arrowheads, knives, drills, etc. The exception

In the beveled flints the side-chipping producing the bevel is always to the left, as may be seen in figure 235 ; only one exception to this has been found. It has been supposed that this is done to give a rotary motion to an arrow. Morgan 210 says that “arrowheads are occasionally found with a twist to make the arrow revolve in its flight;” and the same statement has often been made by others. It may be objected, however, that very few of these beveled specimens are small enough for arrowheads;