It will be observed that the specimens of this class obtained from Tennessee are confined to a limited area. It thus seems especially unfortunate that so little is known of the history of the type specimen given in Plate LVIII, as without assurance of the correctness of the statement that it is from Mississippi we cannot make use of it to show geographical distribution. In reference to this point, however, we have a few very interesting facts which make the occurrence of specimens in localities as widely separated as the "Cumberland River" and "Mississippi" seem inconsequential. I refer now to two specimens described by Dr. Abbott in "Primitive Industry." One of these is a remarkable slate knife, the striking features of which are a "series of etchings and deeply incised lines of perhaps no meaning. Taken in order, it will be noticed that at the back of the knife are four short lines at uniform distances apart, and a fifth near the end of the implement. Besides these are fifteen shorter parallel lines near the broader end of the knife and about the middle of the blade. A series of five zigzag lines are also cut on the opposite end of the blade. * * * More prominent than the numerous lines to which reference has been made, are the clearly defined, unmistakable birds' heads, placed midway between the two series of lines. * * * Did we not learn from the writings of Heckewelder, that the Lenapé had 'the turkey totem,' we might suppose that this drawing of such bird heads originated with the intrusive southern Shawnees, who, at one time, occupied lands in the Delaware Valley, and who are supposed by some writers to have been closely related to the earliest inhabitants of the Southern and Southwestern States. Inasmuch as we shall find that, not only on this slate knife, but upon a bone implement also, similar heads of birds are engraved, it is probable that the identity of the design is not a mere coincidence, but that it must be explained either in accordance with the statements of Heckewelder, or be considered as the work of southern Shawnees after their arrival in New Jersey. In the latter event, the theory that these disks were the work of a people different from and anterior to the Indians found in the Cumberland Valley at the time of the discovery of that region by the whites is, apparently, not sustained by the facts."[139]