The Fulton County news. [volume] (McConnellsburg, Pa.) 1899-current, 1903-11-25
ABOUT MOUND BUILDERS
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Infinite Patience Required Work the Flint They Used
-Ga:%Y.
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to begin, IN order to hold the drill IL
place. DR.. Rau determined to find oui
just how long 1t would take to drill
such a hole. He worked at one hole
for two years. and then left it incom
plete. OF course, the aborigines were
doubtless more skillful at such worb
than DIR. Rau and could complete q
hole In much less time, yet the process
must have been sufficiently tedious.
Frequently. in opening a mound, great
quantities of little beads are found,
all nicely perforated. Each of their
represents weeks of work, for the per
forations were made by rolling q stem
Of grass along the thigh with the right
hand, and holding the bead against the
point of the drill with the left.
Mr.. Fowke shows that this infinite
patience still exists among savages,
citing the case of the tribes Of the
Amazon, which make beautiful tubes
of rock crystal an inch in diameter
and sometimes eight inches long, by
| rubbing down the outside with pieces
Of stone. and then drilling them from
the wild plaintain. To finish the larger
ones requires the lifetime Of two men;
that is. man works all his life at 1t,
and leaves the unfinished ornament to
youth, who sometimes dies of old age
before he gets it completed.
Such unwearying patience rs this
seems almost incredible, yet the imple.
| mo &c nf hav viptn Np
scattered as they are in such numbers,
were fashioned in this very way. The
method still survives and flint is
worked to-day by certain savages just
as it was thousands Of years ago. The
| Indians of Mexico, Peru and California
strike off fakes with stone hammers
or with little wedges Of bone. Some.
times the chips are faxed off by pres.
| sure; but in every instance the imple.
| ments were shaped bit by bit and with
infinite patience.
And how effective were the imple.
ments thus manufactured? Mr.. Fowke
points out how difficult 1t Is to convince
people that an indian or anybody else
could have cut with or made any pr9c.
teal use of the rude tools made of
stone by such primitive processes. Yet,
the aborigines could do many things
with stone which seem almost marvel.
lous-even to shaving. The man who
fumes and frets nowadays when his
razor is a little dull will hear with
with a shell or sharpened stone. Not
that shaving was common. for the pre-.
vailing fashion was to use n smaii
mussel she'll as a nippers and jerk each
hair out by the root-a lasting process,
however painful.
The great mystery about imple-
ments made by the mound builders Is
that. despite the tedious labor it took
to fashion them. they should he made
in such quantities and should seeming.
ly be handled so carelessly. instead Of
being treasured. MS one would natur.
ally expect them to be. Every mound
yields up hundreds and hundreds of
specimens; every field, every meadow,
every bit of woodland is rich with
them: every farmhouse for miles
around here has its collection. AS one
thinks of all these, one gets a vision
of great people working patiently
year after year fashloning these imple'
ments and trlnkets, but why they
should have cared to do so is mys'
terry seemingly beyond solution. Be
side It, the labor of throwing up the
great mounds which dot this valley
seems almost insignificant.-New York
Tribune. -.