The late Dr. Joseph Jones of New Orleans had in his collection some jasper ornaments, mostly from Mississippi, including a beautiful ceremonial ax of reddish translucent jasper.
Besides those mentioned I have not been able to learn of other similar objects. Probably there are a few scattered ones in other hands.
The collection of these objects in my possession includes thirty pieces. They were found on a farm four miles west of Wesson, in Lincoln County. And were plowed up on the summit of a hill where no earthworks were noticed. A few other relics were found at the same time and were not preserved. With them were two other beads, one of a gray stone and the other of bone very truly shaped, as if in a lathe.
Among the jasper ornaments (all of which are perforated longitudinally with holes from one-tenth to one-eighth of an inch in diameter) are three cylinders between two and a half and three inches long and about one-fourth of an inch in diameter; ten cylinders ranging from a quarter to an inch and a quarter in length and less than one-quarter in diameter; five nearly spherical beads; one accurately shaped short cylinder three-quarters of an inch long and five-eighths in diameter, with a well-drilled perforation three-eights of an inch in diameter; and ten carved ornaments of various shapes. One of these, an inch long, is a strikingly sculptured deer. Four are evidently intended for birds, and four others resemble each other and in form are indistinctly bird-like. A separate ring of the same material is firmly fixed on one of the long beads.
All of the specimens have evidently seen service as personal ornaments. They have a fine polish externally, and the interior of the borings is worn smooth as by a string. An artistic color-perception is shown in the beautiful variety of tints brought out in various pieces of jasper used.
As to all these ornaments in red jasper mentioned in this paper, comparison of the specimens forcibly suggests that they may be the work of one skilled artist. In the western pebble belt of Mississippi, which extends along the border of the Mississippi and Yazoo river bottoms southward from near Memphis to Natchez, and thence eastward through the counties in which these relics have been found, quartzite of almost every variety occurs, and chipped implements of almost every variety and color are common. The maker of these ornaments has passed by all other tints save red and brown. In the cylindrical and other carved forms that have been found there is a striking similarity both in design and workmanship.
One will readily believe the perforation of these ornaments with small and accurately made drillings to have been the most difficult part of their manufacture. And yet in all the specimens seen the perforations have been in the longest direction through the ornament. The total length of the borings in the set of thirty beads I have is twenty-eight inches. A lapidary not remarkably expert in the art of drilling these holes would probably have simplified his work by shorter borings, arranging the ornaments as pendants.
Again, the rarity of any objects of carved or polished or perforated quartzite suggests a very limited manufacture even in the region under consideration.
As to the means used in making these perforations, drills of stone are excluded from consideration on account of the smallness and length of the borings.
There is one specimen in the collection of Dr. Joseph Jones of New Orleans, in which a boring has been began, evidently with a hollow tube as a drill, probably a joint of a reed fed with sand, as there is a core in the centre of the boring; but hollow drills as small as one-twelfth of an inch in diameter could scarcely have been used. Some of the specimens described by Dr. Rau show the beginning of the drilling process, apparently with a solid drill, fed with sand.