Sometimes there are specimens found here and there in the country which seem to be more pipe-like than tube-like in character. I present one of these in Fig. 397, from the collection of Mr. G. P. Chandler, Knoxville, Tennessee.
This specimen is of fine sandstone. The drilling makes it appear as an hour-glass. It was impossible to photograph the openings in this specimen, there being no contrast, and therefore it is drawn. One of the openings is about one fourth of an inch larger than the other. There is a band about the centre of the stone. Mr. Chandler kindly presented the specimen to me for our Andover collection.
In Fig. 398, I present three large tube-like stones—perhaps pipes. This form, called by some of the early writers, “telescope,” is fairly common throughout the South. What they were used for, no one knows. I think the general explanation that they were shamans’ charms used in incantations, whereby the evil spirit was drawn from the bodies of the sick, is as good as any. We know that bone and wooden tubes were used for such purposes in historic times and these may have been also made use of in prehistoric times.
Fig. 396. (S. 2–3.) Phillips Academy collection.
Fig. 397. (S. 2–3.) Phillips Academy collection. Drawn by George P. Chandler, Knoxville, Tennessee.
Fig. 398. (S. 1–2.) Stone tubes. The two upper specimens are of steatite, and the lower one is of hard clay stone. B. H. Young’s collection, Louisville, Kentucky.