Fig. 39. (S. 1–3.) See Fig. 40 for description.

Fig. 40. (S. 1–3.) Series of flaked forms illustrating progressive steps in the manufacture of projectile points, etc., from quartzite boulders, obtained from shop- and village-sites about Washington City.

CHAPTER IV
CHIPPED IMPLEMENTS

HOW MANUFACTURED

In all that has been said about the manufacture of chipped implements the past thirty years, I have seen no paper that will compare in technique with that presented by Mr. George E. Sellars of Illinois in the Smithsonian Report, 1885, page 871. I have on several occasions quoted a few pages from Mr. Sellars’s narrative, and intend here, with the omission of some irrelevant paragraphs, to present his entire paper, with the illustrations. At the time he wrote it, he was about eighty years of age.

When, in 1885, Mr. Sellars called upon Dr. Rau of the Smithsonian Institution and gave an account of his experiments and studies in stone-chipping, he was asked by Dr. Rau to prepare the following paper. This is now out of print, and it certainly merits preservation, as nothing done in recent times by any observer can compare with the knowledge obtained of flint-flaking by this remarkable citizen of the Middle West.

As a boy Mr. Sellars was interested in mechanical arts. He enjoyed the friendship of George Catlin. His mother’s father had come from Maryland, bringing with him a large library of the best literature. Mr. Peale, Sellars’s grandfather, was in correspondence with distinguished men of England, and Sellars had access to letters from Thomas Jefferson and to the letters of Captain John Smith of the Virginia colony, all of which were family heirlooms.

Mr. Sellars devoted many years to study of stone implements found in the Ohio Valley. Except with reference to a few of his remarks concerning the use of levers in detaching flakes from implements, I am willing to accept all that he says in explanation of how all objects were manufactured. And even with reference to the use of levers, Sellars may be correct, as it would be impossible to make flint spades by means of a small flaking-tool held in the hand, although the first stage of the implement might possibly be produced by the use of the hand-hammer. Be that as it may, I am willing to accept Mr. Sellars’s observations, at least until some one proves them to be of no value.

After an account of how he came to be interested in this subject, he discourses upon Captain John Smith’s letters.