Fig. 228. (S. 1–4.) Unusually large celts from Mr. Braun’s collection, East St. Louis, Illinois. I have referred on a previous page to celts such as these. There are quite a few in our museums, particularly in the Washington, Chicago, Cambridge, and New York collections. It is very seldom that they are highly finished; usually they are a trifle rough, although there are instances in which the specimen is brought to a high finish, as is the case of the smaller polished stone hatchets. Whether these were tribal possessions, or were made to show the skill of the worker in stone, or were brought forth under certain conditions and placed in the medicine lodge, I leave for others to decide.
In Fig. 225 I have reproduced from Dr. Beauchamp’s Bulletin ten specimens, ranging from a small wedge-shaped celt to three long double-pointed instruments. The one to the right is sharply convex with a flat base. To the extreme left is an elongated oval not very sharp at either end. Next to it is an object with quite pointed ends. While these are placed by me in the celt class, the four larger specimens are scarcely celts.
Fig. 229. (S. 1–3.) To the right is a remarkable celt. It is eighteen inches long, 7 3–4 wide at the cutting edge. Made of dark greenstone; weight, six pounds. To the left is a very slender celt 17 1–2 inches long. Largest circumference, 3 1–2 inches. The two central ones are 10 1–2 and 9 3–4 inches. One is made of greenstone, and the other of syenite. All are from Kentucky. B. H. Young’s collection, Louisville, Kentucky.
Elsewhere in the United States, particularly in the St. Lawrence Basin—which includes southern and eastern Canada and northern Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, northern Indiana and Ohio, a strip through Pennsylvania and New York and the Lake Champlain region and a little of New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, other specimens, but smaller than these, though the same general type, are found. Sometimes they are so blunt that they resemble commercial whetstones.
Fig. 230. (S. 2–5.) This presents two views of a rare form of celt, from the John Merkle collection, Bellevue, Iowa. The specimen exhibits much use. It is just the opposite of the lower specimen shown in Fig. 224, and illustrates that the Indian put the edge on either end of an axe or celt blade to suit his fancy. It is quite likely that Fig. 230 was mounted in a handle and used as a tomahawk. The flaring blade is quite unusual. Drawn by Richard Herrmann. Material: blue-black, close-grained, hard rock, probably diorite.
In Fig. 224 there are shown eight celts from the collection of Phillips Academy, Andover. They come from various portions of the United States. In the upper row at either side are typical oval celts, with this difference, that the one to the right has a broad cutting edge, and the one to the left is quite convex, with poll and edge of equal width. This approaches the chisel type. In the centre of the top row is a roughly pecked, unpolished celt, the poll of which is narrowed for the purpose of fitting it into a handle.
Fig. 231. (S. about 1–3.) Reproduced from Baron G. Nordenskiöld’s “Cliff-Dwellers of the Mesa Verde,” pl. 36.