Note on Hæmatite Indian Axes from West Virginia, U.S.A.

Abstract

THROUGH the kindness of Horace Fisk, of Trenton, and Major Jed. Hotchkiss, of Staunton, Va., I have been able to procure two specimens of hæmatite iron ore hatchets, of aboriginal manufacture. They possess great interest from the fact of being very similar to native copper axes, characteristic of the “finds”of relics of “mound builders.” The specimens, one of which is here figured, have unquestionably been hammered out cold, and shaped from a fragment of the ore, without the aid of fire in previously refining the mass. The specimen figured measures five inches and a quarter in length, by three inches in breadth at the cutting end. The opposite end is square, nearly two inches in width, and somewhat thinner than the broader portion of the implement, which is nowhere of greater thickness than one-fourth of an inch.