the manufacture of various utensils, has proved to be composed largely
of quartz, intermingled with which is a fine, fibrous, radiated
substance, the optical properties of which demonstrate it to be
fibrolite. In addition, the rock is filled with minute crystals of
octahedral form which are composed of magnetite, and scattered through
the rock are minute yellow crystals of rutile. The red coloration which
these specimens possess is due to thin films of hematite. The rock is
therefore fibrolite schist, and from a lithological standpoint it is
very interesting. The fibrolite imparts the toughness to the rock,
which, I should judge, would increase its value for the purposes to
which the Indians applied it.”

The axes, hatchets, mauls, and other implements used for cutting,
splitting, or piercing are generally more or less imperfect, worn,
chipped, or otherwise injured. This condition is to be accounted for by
the fact that they are all of ancient manufacture; an implement of this
kind being rarely, if ever, made by the Indians at the present day. They
are usually of a hard volcanic rock, not employed by the present
inhabitants in the manufacture of implements. They have in most cases
been collected from the ruins of the Mesa and Cliff dwellers, by whose
ancestors they were probably made. I was unable to learn of a single
instance in which one of these had been made by the modern Indians. In
nearly all cases the edges, once sharp and used for cutting, splitting,
or piercing, are much worn and blunt from use in pounding or other
purposes than that for which they were originally intended. On more than
one occasion I have observed a woman using the edge of a handsome stone
axe in pulverizing volcanic rock to mix with clay for making pottery.
Nearly all the edged stone implements are thus injured. Those showing
the greatest perfection were either too small to utilize in this manner
or had but recently been discovered when we obtained them.