cause of its unfitness for chipping into form on account of impurities.

In the region of the cross-roads the best examples of flint may be found, as well as the largest quarries located on the "Ridge".

An examination of the quarries developed the fact that only a very small portion of the flint deposit was of use to prehistoric man in the manufacture of artifacts, as much of the flint was full of seams and cracks which did not permit of the manufacture of a desired artifact with any degree of certainty, as demonstrated by the many broken blades found on the site of the work shop.

Another feature of the flint in this section was the presence of countless geodes filled with quartz crystals. The geodes varied in size from that of a pea or less to large geodes of from twelve to fourteen inches in diameter. The quartz crystals found in the geodes were usually small, but the large geodes generally contained large crystals. Apparently the crystals, unless very large, were not used in any way and were thrown away with the useless flint.

The flint found outside of the regions where it was quarried is very porous and fossiliferous, and very frequently mixed with calcareous or argillaceous material, which rendered it useless to primitive man as far as chipped implements were concerned.

The flint at the west end of the "Ridge", in Licking County, was especially useless to primitive man, but the early white settler found it well adapted to the making of buhr-stones, used in grinding grain into flour. Near the western edge of the outcrop of the flint, several partly formed buhr-stones, each weighing a ton or more, may be seen where they were quarried, upon the farm of Mr. William Hazlett, near the only large mound located upon the "Ridge".

The flint at the eastern end of the "Ridge" is likewise unfit for implement making but well adapted for buhr-stones. In the early pioneer days of Ohio, Mr. Samuel Drumm quarried the flint in, suitable blocks and fashioned them into small hand buhrstones. One of the buhr-stones complete and one partly shaped

and found at the quarry where many more were in evidence are shown in Fig. 3.

The farm upon which the quarry is located is owned by Mr. George Fisher, who kindly presented to the museum a fine sample of the partly shaped buhr-stone shown to the right in Fig. 3 as well as a buhr-stone sent from France and used as a sample stone.

The manufacture of these small buhr-stones during the early settlement of the country was a very great convenience to the people, as water mills for grinding grain could only be constructed where proper conditions prevailed, and often long dis

FIG. 3. Complete buhr-stone made by Mr. Samuel Drumm. To the left in Fig. 3 is a partly shaped buhr-stone from the farm of Mr. George Fisher.

tances would be traveled to find such a mill; consequently the small hand mill made from Flint Ridge flint was very desirable, and the manufacture of the buhr-stones proved to be a very lucrative industry. The buhr-stones manufactured at the Drumm site were sent to a point on the Old National Road, three miles to the south, where they were transported by ox teams as far west as the Mississippi River and as far east as Pittsburgh.

The preliminary examination of numerous quarries upon Flint Ridge made it apparent that the solution of the problem of quarrying the flint was unsolved and, to arrive at any definite conclusions, a systematic study of the entire area was necessary.

Consequently the field of investigation was extended to every part of the ridge where primitive man attempted to quarry and make use of the flint.

GEOLOGY OF FLINT RIDGE.

As a preliminary step to a study of the evidence of human industry on Flint Ridge, it is very important that the geology of the place be reviewed. Aboriginal flint quarries have long been known at Flint Ridge, but prior to 1830 little was known to the scientist concerning the geology of this region. The first writer referring to the aboriginal quarries was Caleb Atwater in his "Western Antiquities", page 28, as follows:

"A few miles below Newark, on the south side of the Licking, are some of the most extraordinary holes, dug in the earth, for number and depth, of any within my knowledge, which belonged to the people we are treating of. In popular language, they are called 'wells' but were not dug for the purpose of procuring water, either fresh or salt.

"There are at least a thousand of these 'wells'; many of them are now more than twenty feet in depth. A great deal of curiosity has been excited, as to the objects sought for by the people who dug these holes. One gentlemen nearly ruined himself by digging in and about these works, in quest of the precious metals; but he found nothing very precious. I have been at the pains to obtain specimens of all the minerals, in and near these wells. They have not all of them been put to proper tests; but I can say, that rock crystals, some of them very beautiful, and horn stone, suitable for arrow and spear heads, and a little lead, sulphur, and iron, was all that I could ascertain correctly to belong to the specimens in my possession. Rock crystals, and stone arrow and spear heads, were in great repute among them, if we are to judge from the numbers of them found in such of the mounds as were common cemeteries. To a rude people, nothing would stand a better chance of being esteemed, as an ornament, than such articles.

"On the whole, I am of the opinion, that these holes were dug for the purpose of procuring the articles aboye named; and that it is highly probable a vast population, once here, procured these, in their estimation, highly ornamenta? and useful articles. And it is possible that they might have procured some lead here, though by no means probable, because we no where find any lead which ever belonged to them, and it will not very soon, like iron, become an oxide, by rusting."