. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 5G6 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. equally couvex, oue being considerably curved and the other curved but little from a straight line, giving them an ungainly and lop-sided form. Their broad ends, originally rounded, i)robably, like the first fourteen, have been chipped away on each side for half or three-fourths of an inch from the extremity, forming abroad rudimentary shank. At first glance these objects would readily be m
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. 5G6 MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS RELATING TO ANTHROPOLOGY. equally couvex, oue being considerably curved and the other curved but little from a straight line, giving them an ungainly and lop-sided form. Their broad ends, originally rounded, i)robably, like the first fourteen, have been chipped away on each side for half or three-fourths of an inch from the extremity, forming abroad rudimentary shank. At first glance these objects would readily be mistaken for unfinished awk- wardly shaped spear-heads; but slight examination proves them to be completed implements, all fashionedafterexactly the same pattern, with one end pointed, a greater convexity of one side than the other, and the base which in the first fourteen is regularly rounded, in these has been slightly cut away on each side, perhaps to facilitate their insertion in some sort of handle. The greater rounding out of one side than the other in all cannot be accidental, or due to want of skill in the workmen who made them; and this odd design is not easily reconciled with the ordinary forms and uses of spear points. Occasionally flint arrow-points are found approximating this shape, one side from point to shank describing a slightly curved or straight line with the other side regularly barbed, or curved, as in the common types. In our collec- tion are two specimens somewhat concavo-convex, or sickle-shaped. It has been gravely suggested that implements of this form were so made, and in- tended for use, exclusively for spearing and shoot- ing fish, on the hypothesis that the greater weight of one side of the flint, or its irregular form, would give the shaft to which it was attached, when launched, a curved direction, thereby overcoming the water's refraction of the solar rays, and cause the weapon to strike the real and not the appar- Fig. 3. ent position of the fi
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