poses. It would hardly seem probable that a material of the value of copper for ornamental work and for cutting implements, would have been used for sinkers for nets or fishing lines when stones would answer equally well; and the adaptability of an article for a particular use is not always a safe guide in determining its character. Such objects as these were as well if not better fitted for use in stretching the threads over the frame of a hand loom in weaving, and we now know that the builders of the mounds were good weavers. They also could have been enclosed in skins and used as slung-shots, or many of the smaller sizes. like this one of copper, could well be classed as personal ornaments. FIG. 18.

Whatever may have been the use of this particular specimen it is of interest as having been made by pounding together an arborescent mass (not bits as stated by Dr. Hildreth) of native copper containing native silver, and such a mass was probably derived from the copper region of Lake Superior, in which place the two metals occur thus associated in arborescent or foliated masses. The silver therefore was probably not inserted in the cracks of

Copper Ornament or Implement from the Marietta Mound. The white portions at lower end represent the silver as seen from opposite sides. the copper, as supposed by Dr. Hildreth, but is in its natural position in the mass, and has simply been pounded and shaped with the copper. Red ochre, mentioned in the last quotation, is often found in mounds and in graves, not only in America but in other parts of the world as well, and is the universal red paint of man in past times.

The statement that a piece of "iron ore" was found in the mound is one of great interest, now that we know from the discoveries of the past year that the peculiar and malleable qualities of meteoric iron were known to the builders of the group of mounds in the Little Miami Valley, and it is unfortunate that, while the other articles mentioned in the account are now in the cabinet of the Society, this iron ore can not now be found. Mr. Squier, in quoting Dr. Hildreth's statement, considers that the ore was a piece of polished hematite, but he does not state that he examined the specimen. He simply puts the word hematite in brackets after the words "iron ore," and the word

polished after the quotation of the word "vitrified." As he states distinctly that he examined the silver plated "boss," he may also have seen the "iron ore," and as he was familiar with implements and ornaments made of hematite he may have examined the specimen and correctly designated its character in this way. He however puts a question mark after his insertion of the word "polished" which leads me to conclude that he had not seen the specimen. In its absence, however, it is useless to attempt to discuss its true character, although the probability is that it was hematite, which is often found in the mounds; but there is a possibility that it was a small mass of meteoric iron.

In this paper I have endeavored, in the proper spirit of scientific criticism, to call attention to the misconceptions of these early writers in relation to the interesting and important discoveries and observations which they made; not with the view of finding fault with what they wrote, but with a hope that their misconceptions, now that their statements are compared with the facts obtained in later years, and corrected in the light of recent discoveries, will no longer stand in the way of the correct interpretation of the story of the mounds, which we are now able to read with clearer eyes than in the days when nearly every fact observed was thought worthless unless it could be immediately accounted for, and the unknown became intelligible by the application of the power of the imagination.

NOTES UPON ANCIENT SOAP-STONE QUARRIES, WORKED FOR THE MANUFACTURE OF

COOKING UTENSILS.

AN interesting letter from Dr. Emil Schmidt, of Essen, Prussia, to our associate, Mr. F. W. Putnam, in the Fifteenth Annual Report of the Peabody Museum, p. 59, describes the present appearance of some ancient steatite quarries at Chiavenna, about ten miles north of the head of Lake Como, where cooking utensils, closely resembling those formerly made in large quantities by the natives of various parts of our own country, have been manufactured from very remote times. The traces of ancient workings occur in the sides of a deep cutting made in the 14th century to isolate the so-called Paradiso, and form an impregnable citadel out of a mountain spur over-looking the little town. Chiavenna has always been regarded as one of the keys of Italy," since it commands the outlet of three important Alpine passes, the Splügen and the Septimer, which were used in the times of the Romans, and the Maloja, leading directly into the Engadine. This accounts for the execution at this place of works upon such an extensive scale as this cutting. Dr. Schmidt says: 66 Probably there existed a smaller ditch a long time before; this would be shown by the engraved Latin name SALVIVS in the upper part of the western wall. Also it is known that the Gauls had fortified the Paradiso already before the time of the Romans. Potstones may have been broken there since that time, and their manufacture may have been continued until the achievement of the ditch. Of course the stone-pot manufacture was most flourishing in the district in the first centuries of our era, and at Plurs [just east of Chiavenna ] it continued until 1618, when this place was totally destroyed and covered by the falling down of Mount Conto [Conte]. Still soap-stone pots are now manufactured to a certain extent at Lazanda [Lanzada ], in the Malenco valley, near Sondrio."

In a description of a steatite quarry upon the island of Santa Catalina, formerly worked by the Indians of southern California, by Mr. Paul Schumacher in the Eleventh Annual Report of the Peabody Museum, p. 259, he also traces the fabrication of cooking utensils out of soap-stone back to a very remote period. He says: "The stone of which this utensil for culinary purposes, and some other articles of our Indians were worked out, has been well known and in use for like purposes

since the classic times of Theophrastus and Pliny. The magnesian stone (μayvitis libos), and the kind quarried at Siphnos and Comum-the lapis ollaris of a later period-of which in ancient times vessels were hollowed out in the turning-lathe and carved, coincide in nature and composition with the pot-stone of our Indians. The stone is steatite and is usually of a greenish grey color." The reference to Pliny will be found in his "Natural History," book 36, chapter 44: "At Siphnos there is a kind of stone, which is hollowed and turned in the lathe for making cooking utensils and vessels for keeping provisions; a thing that to my own knowledge is done with the green stone of Comum, in Italy."

When we call to mind that Pliny, if not a native of Como, certainly had a villa upon the shores of the lake, where he spent a great deal of time, it seems not an unreasonable inference that these ancient steatite workings at Chiavenna, where a Roman inscription may still be read, are the identical quarries to which he refers. I have never met with an instance of the use of the phrase "lapis ollaris" in a classic author, and am inclined to think it merely a retranslation of the French expression 'pierre ollaire." This, or simply "ollaire," according to Larouse, Dict. sub voc., is the name given to a variety of stone from which sauce pans (marmite, olla) are made, from which the name is derived. The material is commonly called "stone of Como," as the most important sources of its supply are there.

Prof. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institution, first directed attention to the site of a soap-stone quarry worked for similar purposes by the Indians of our own country. This is at Chula, Amelia Co., Virginia, and it has been thoroughly explored and described by Mr. F. H. Cushing in the Smithsonian Report for 1878, p. 45. Mr. Putnam in his Eleventh Annual Report of the Peabody Museum, p. 273, gives a very interesting account of a similar quarry examined by him in the town of Johnston, R. I., with a description of the method of manufacture of the vessels; and Mr. Elmer R. Reynolds describes with full details another locality in the District of Columbia, Twelfth Annual Report of the Peabody Museum, p. 526. Prof. Baird states that "since the discovery of the Virginia quarry similar sources of aboriginal supply have been discovered in Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Georgia, Alabama and Wyoming," Smithsonian Report for 1878, p. 46. It does not appear, however, that they had any knowledge of the quarries at Francestown, N. H., and at Grafton, Vt., from which the material is principally obtained at the present time in this country.

HENRY W. HAYNES.