sist of unconsolidated materials. The sandhill region which covers the northwestern half of the state is derived from the disintegration of Tertiary sands and their subsequent transportation by the wind. In the early history of the state, when herds roved unrestricted over the Plains, and when prairie fires were unchecked, the bare sands became shifting sand dunes, and grass, underbrush, and trees were destroyed, and the region presented the appearance of a desert, as it was then supposed to be. Now some of the best ranches, hay lands, and grazing lands are to be found in the heart of the sand-hill country. The Southeastern half of the state is covered, from a few feet to one hundred feet or more in depth, with a fine, light yellow loam of great fertility, known as the loess, or bluff deposit, from its habit of standing in vertical walls. Economically this constitutes the basis of the agricultural greatness of Nebraska. The eastern fifth of the state has a thin layer of glacial drift under the loess. West of Seward county evidence of glacial drift ceases. The material composing our drift is clay, gravel, sand, bowlders (sic) of granite, green stone, and the like from distant northern points, but more especially pink bowlders (sic) of Sioux quartzite from Sioux Falls, South Dakota. This formation is of little economic value, although its bowlders (sic), some of which are as much as twenty feet in diameter, are utilized to some extent for foundations and other building purposes.
   The youngest deposit in the state is the alluvium of our streams, useful chiefly because of its great fertility, and because it furnishes material for making a fair grade of brick where good clays are wanting.
   The known minerals of the state are of interest mineralogically rather than economically. Gold, native copper, meteoric iron, terrestrial iron, iron pyrite, marcasite, limonite, magnetic iron sand, pyrolusite, selenite, barite, celesite, calcite, agate, chelcedony, and turquoise are among the minerals recorded for the state. Among the mineral resources already developed or of probable utility are ocher, peat, bituminous coal of the Carboniferous, lignite coal of the Cretaceous, diatomaceous earth, natural pumice of volcanic ash in extensive beds, enormous amounts of clay, limestone, sand, gravel, flint, and material for manufacture of hydraulic cement.
   The preparation of the geological history of a state requires the closest inspection and study of past and present conditions in every quarter of it; and already it may be predicted with certainty that many of the natural resources of Nebraska, when they become better known, will be developed to such an extent that its present boasted agricultural products will not be its only source of wealth.

FALLS OF THE NORTH LOUP RIVER

Plunge about twelve feet; width, forty to fifty feet.

   ARCHAEOLOGY.³ The geographical position of Nebraska, situated as it is between the Missouri river on the east and the great Rockies on the west, is conducive to a complicated and interesting archaeology, as well as geology, fauna, and flora. We find the Stone Age implements distributed along the waterways so abundantly that we may readily conclude that primitive man gradually worked his way over the entire state by following the streams. The archaeology of the state can be determined only by the implements. The quantity of Stone Age material found, naturally divides itself into three classes. While these three classes overlap each other in many cases, yet every implement may be readily placed in one of them. These classes may be subdivided, it is

true, but in that subdivision some one implement will be found which is doubtful, and at this stage of the study, lines of demarcation point out but three distinct classes. The first, or most primitive class, is found, without pottery intermixed, along the Blue river and in the southeastern portions of the state. The second, or intermediate class, consists of chipped implements of massive size, found along the Elkhorn and Missouri rivers; they are abundant in the northeastern part of Kansas as well. A few have been found along the Platte river. The third class (which may be subdivided most easily) consists of chipped flints showing fine workmanship; and abundant potsherds, some beaten copper ornaments, and a few "ceremonials" are intermixed, The houseform, or lodge circles, may be studied in this class, and are most abundant along the Platte and its tributaries.
   It should be borne in mind that these three classes of Stone Age implements may belong to one people -- that they may only represent a single tribe in its evolution from barbarism to semi-civilization; or they may belong to twenty or more tribes having no ties in common. Only years of careful study and comparison can settle that question, if, indeed, it can ever be definitely settled.
   It should be borne in mind also that primitive man used stone implements entirely. The aborigine wandered over this state before the Bronze Age; in fact, there are no known indications that there ever was a Bronze Age in Nebraska.
   One of the three following propositions is true, either wholly or in part: first, the aborigine was extinct before civilization came to this continent; second, the Amerind⁴, with implements obtained from the whites, drove out the aborigine; or, third, he was, himself, supplied with implements of civilization and is now counted an Amerind. Archaeology has to deal with prehistoric man, the man who used the implements of the Stone Age, and when this aborigine has developed into an Amerind, ethnology takes up the study where archaeology leaves off. If the aborigine frequented a spot there was certainly a reason for so doing. Let us examine the conditions that would entice the primitive Stone Age man. The white man cultivates the soil and produces his subsistence, but the aborigine followed the chase and supplied his wants direct from nature; to do this, he must have flint or some kind of stone from which to make his implements. Flint is the most available material for this purpose, as it possesses the property of conchoidal fracture, as well as great toughness, very desirable in stone-cutting implements.
   The southeastern part of the state contains flint nodules imbedded in the limestone ledges; the watershed of the Republican river contains a brown flint or jasper in strata; the northeastern part, along the Niobrara river, has a green quartzite which chips easily. Most of the chipped implements of the state are made from one of these kinds of stone; we may therefore conclude that this natural deposit of implement-making material largely influenced the aborigine in his choice of location. The numerous running streams and the proximity of the buffalo plains, together with an abundance of small game, doubtless helped to make eastern Nebraska a favored place for the aborigine.
   The Blue river valley is strewn most abundantly with the earliest type of Stone Age implements. They are found on the high points of land which overlook the Blue river, and are usually not far from a water supply. The material used for these rude implements was found near at hand. As far as the Blue valley has been explored (from Beatrice to the state line on the south) there are imbedded in the limestone which rests near the water line many nodules of blue chert or flint. The quality of this material is much better than that of the chert ledges farther south in Kansas, but the nodules are not so abundant and are much harder to procure. In making the implements, it is evident that the work was done by beating the edge of another piece of rock until the desired shape was obtained. The edges are blunt and the implements very rude. Many frag-

FLINT SPEARHEAD FOUND NEAR BLAIR, NEBRASKA

FLINT IMPLEMENTS OF NEBRASKA

HEMATITE BUST FOUND NEAR LINCOLN, NEBRASKA

FLINT TOMAHAWK FOUND NEAR WYMORE, NEBRASKA, BY JAMES CRAWFORD

ments of flint are found with very sharp edges left by the fracture, showing that cutting tools, having sharp natural fractures instead of having been artificially chipped to a cutting edge, were used.
   From the Blue river eastward to the state line many high points of land have a few of the chips of blue chert mixed with the soil, showing that aboriginal man once had his camp there. But the most pronounced evidence of this first or lowest stage of the Stone Age is found near the mouth of the Weeping Water; at that point one may draw a circle five miles in diameter with the town of Nehawka well to the southeast side of this circle, and he will enclose a vast area of quarry pits made by prehistoric man .⁵ The exact surface area of these pits has not been measured, but they cover many acres.
   Mr. Isaac Pollard, who owns some of the land upon which the pits are found, made an excavation through one of them. The trench is eighty feet long, six feet wide, and from ten to twelve feet deep. This trench has its floor on a solid ledge of limestone, which is the

QUIVERA TOMAHAWKS
FOUND BY WALTER RICE NEAR BLUE SPRINGS, NEBRASKA

fourth ledge from the top. The trench, as dug from the hillside surface back to the edge of the pit on the brow of the hill, terminates at a solid, perpendicular wall. Here appear marks of discoloration caused by fire. Quantities of charcoal and ashes were found at the base of the wall and scattered throughout the debris which the trench passes through for half its length,
   At the beginning of the trench, some forty feet above the water level and a hundred feet from the bed of the Weeping Water, broken rocks and quarry debris were found for a few feet, then the trench passed through a bank of earth and stratified rocks that had not been moved. This bank is sixteen feet thick on the floor of the trench. After this comes a mixture of spalls, broken rocks, and soil intermingled. This debris appeared to have been thrown out in layers resting at an angle of about forty-five degrees with the level of the floor. It is loosely packed in places, while here and there is very closely packed stratum of brown clay filled with flint spalls and bits of limestone; it has every appearance of being well tamped, and is hard to dig through.
   The most abundant material in the debris

is broken lime rocks having large fractures on them as if struck by some heavy body. Many of these rocks show the rounded matrix of a flint nodule which has been removed. The surface near the pit is strewn with flint spalls. The first stratum, as shown in a quarry near by, is a rotten lime rock; the second is a fairly good building stone without flint nodules, and at the perpendicular wall where the trench ends it is from twenty-six to thirty-eight inches thick. The third stratum, which is very compact and from thirty to forty-two inches thick, contains the flint nodules, about two-thirds of the way down. These nodules are from the size of an egg to the size of a man's head, and are about twelve inches apart each way. They cleave out very readily, and leave a rounded matrix when the ledge is broken lip.
   No tools and no perfectly chipped implements have thus far been found; in fact, no flint upon which artificial chipping can be detected for a certainty has been found in the trench, and no pottery. A few of the first class of Stone Age implements were found in the vicinity; and a few sherds of pottery, as well as some of the third class of implements, were found in lodge circles and graves near these pits. They doubtless belonged to other people who came along the Missouri at a later date.
   In this limited sketch can be given but a faint conception of the skill shown in quarrying, of the years spent in systematic labor, and of the vast numbers that must have been engaged. In one of these pits stands a bur-oak tree six feet two inches in circumference.
   The second class of Stone Age implements comprises those of massive, chipped stone found along the Elkhorn and Missouri rivers. Quantities of these are also found along the Sioux river in Iowa, as well as in the northeastern part of Kansas. They are shaped like the smaller implements of class three; they

THE ONLY COMPLETE PIECE OF INDIAN POTTERY EVER DISCOVERED IN NEBRASKA, SO FAR AS KNOWN.
   FOUND BY R. DEWITT STEARNS NEAR FULLERTON

are undoubtedly chipped by the pressure process, and at times show much skill in their manufacture. With them are often found the finer and smaller implements of class three.
   The characteristic of these implements is their size; they are too large for use in the chase or in war, and may be classed as digging tools. On the Wright site, near Genoa, these massive implements are abundant in a field near the lodge circles now to be seen there, but not at the same place. It seems that the newer village site is a few rods from the old one, where the lodge circles are not plainly defined but where these massive implements are abundant. This may lead to a better understanding of this second class in time. Near the Elkhorn, where no lodge circles can be noticed, these massive implements are abundantly scattered with implements of the third class, and pottery is found there, too.
   The third class of Stone Age implements is abundant in most parts of the state and consists of finely chipped arrows, scrapers, and spears in use by the Indians when early hunters and trappers first came among them. This class may be subdivided. Every tribe which the early trappers and missionaries visited manifested a certain individuality in their chipped flints. This difference is not easily studied from the meager data left by the early writers, and there are many stumbling blocks encountered in trying to classify them from their individuality of chipping alone.
   This class is most abundant along the Platte river, where the lodge circles are most plainly defined. These lodge circles antedate the traditionary knowledge of the Amerind, but are so similar to the ruins left by the recent tribes that we can but connect the two as the product of the same people. In many cases we know that these ancient ruins were abandoned before contact, even indirectly, with whites, as the red man prized so highly the arts of the whites that he adopted them on sight. There is not the slightest trace of such contact, and we may safely conclude that there was none, and therefore this latest class is properly a study in archaeology. A lengthy description of these implements may not find room here, but the Nebraska State Historical Society museum illustrates the three classes in question.
   It is true in a limited degree only that we may judge the people by their pottery. The potsherds found in Nebraska are mainly of three kinds: those having fabric impressions, those ornamented with designs drawn on the plastic clay, and a poorer quality of more recent manufacture. The first two are black, feebly burned, and tempered with quartz, pebbles, mica, and pieces of pottery crushed. The last is often very red, having been burned more severely; it is tempered with sand and at times small pebbles are found in it as well as powdered shells.
   Buche⁶ describes a Scandinavian pottery which corresponds in every way to this Nebraska pottery. The Scandinavian pottery was made two thousand years B. C.
   It is evident that the first class of the Stone Age, as described above, had no pottery. It is equally certain that the third class had pottery in abundance; the second, or intermediate stage is so closely associated with both that it is difficult to say definitely what it contained.
   The third class had pottery of the first two kinds mentioned, and the third kind was probably brought here by some later tribe.
   The study of Nebraska archaeology has been in progress, in a systematic way, only a few years, and it is perhaps venturesome to supply even these brief data. No other state in the Union offers a more fertile field. It is complicated, as the aborigine was a nomadic creature, and so many tribes of recent Indians have made these vast buffalo plains their hunting grounds that it is very difficult to follow the line of demarcation between the ruins of the aborigine and those of the Amerind. Many relics have been gathered into the Nebraska State Historical Society museum, which forms the basis of this study. Many more are scattered over the state, not only in the fields and along the streams, but in the keeping of people who enjoy their possession, but who do not realize their importance in completing this branch of our history.
   Twenty-four village sites have been explor-