. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. PREHISTORIC ART. 435 Pike County, Illinois, and was found by Mr. Brainard Mitcliel. Its leugtli is 10:^ inches. Obsidian.—The art of chipping required such material as was homo- geneous and would break with a clear fracture. All that did so broke with a conchoid. Obsidian pos- sessed these qualifications. Itbroke with a sharp, smooth edge and a clear fracture, and was, with flint, a favorite with the prehistoric stone- chipping artist. The
. Annual report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution. Smithsonian Institution; Smithsonian Institution. Archives; Discoveries in science. PREHISTORIC ART. 435 Pike County, Illinois, and was found by Mr. Brainard Mitcliel. Its leugtli is 10:^ inches. Obsidian.—The art of chipping required such material as was homo- geneous and would break with a clear fracture. All that did so broke with a conchoid. Obsidian pos- sessed these qualifications. Itbroke with a sharp, smooth edge and a clear fracture, and was, with flint, a favorite with the prehistoric stone- chipping artist. The United States National Museum possesses hun- dreds of cores or nuclei of obsidian and thousands of flakes which have been struck therefrom. The cores are 6 or 7 inches in length and un- der. Some have had flakes struck off all round, and others only part way. These flakes have all been knocked ott" by a blow at the top, each blow making a flake. There are as many as sixteen flakes which have been struck from a single core, and this has been repeated in lesser numbers among many cores. The difficulty of this work and the art displayed in its performance is man- ifested by the fact that the artist was able to reproduce these cores and flakes in the large and indefi- nite numbers suggested. He seemed to be able to determine the size and weight of his hammer and manipu- late the blow with sufficient force and accuracy to repeat the result any number of times, producing at his pleasure hundreds or thousands of specimens practically alike. Plate 28 represents selections of these cores and flakes. These par- ticular specimens are from Mexico, but similar ones have been found throughout the Rocky Mountain region of the United States and on the Pacific Coast, and are not uncommon in every part of the world where this material is obtainable. The island of Crete is notable for the number of these objects, though they are all small. Fig. 88 repre- sents a large hooked implement of o
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