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UNITED STATES, CANADA AND MEXICO
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169
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color
of the material is for the most part jet-black, but some of it is
mottled and streaked with brownish red and various shades of brown
mountain mahogany, passing into dark or light yellow, purple, and
yellowish green." Fine examples from this locality are in the United
States National Museum Collection at Washington.
William H. Holmes, in an interesting paper in the "American Naturalist,"1
states that while examining the locality it occurred to him that the
various Indian tribes of the neighborhood had probably visited the
place in order to procure material for arrowheads and similar
implements, and after a short search he found a leaf-shaped instrument
that was 4 inches in length, 3 in width, and i inch in thickness, of
very fine workmanship and made of the black opaque obsidian. Further
search was rewarded by ten more or less perfect implements. The use of
obsidian as points for arrows, spears, and cutting implements was noted
by Squire and Davis, who found such articles, though mostly broken, in
Indian altar mounds of the Scioto Valley in Ohio; and an object made of
this material was found in Tennessee by Gerald Troost.'
John
R. Bartlett,' commissioner of the United States from 1850 to 1853 for
determining the boundary line between the United States and Mexico,
found pieces of obsidian and fragments of painted pottery along the
Gila River wherever there had been Indian villages. Specimens have been
found along the ruins of the Casas Grandes in Chihuahua, Mex., as well
as along the Gila and Salinas Rivers. Similar observations have been
made by earlier and later travellers, among whom is Caleb Lyon, who in
1860 found the Shasta Indians of California making arrowheads from
obsidian as well as from the glass of a broken bottle. In a letter,
which was published by the American Ethnological Society, he describes
the method of manufacture.4 The beautiful
1 Notes on an Extensive Deposit of Obsidian in the Yellowstone Park. Vol. 13, p. 247, April, 1879.
8 Ancient Remains in Tennessee. Vol. I., p. 361, New York, 1845.
3 Personal
Narrative of Explorations and Incidents in Texas, New Mexico,
California, Sonora, and Chihuahua, during the years 1850-1853, Vol. 2,
p. 50, New York, 1854. Humboldt's Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle
Espagne, Vol. 2, p. 243, Paris, 1825. Clavirego's History of Mexico,
Vol. I, p. 157, Philadelphia, 1817.
4 Bulletin of the American Ethnological Society, Vol. I, p. 39, New York, 1861.
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