While ground slate is a quite common material for round knives, flint appears to have been rarely used. We obtained only three of this material. No. 89690 [1311] is a flint knife hafted with a rough, irregular lump of coarse whale’s bone. The blade is a rather thin “spall” of light gray flint, flaked round the edges into the shape of a modern ulúrɐ blade, with a very strongly curved cutting edge. Though the handle is new, the flaking of the blade does not seem fresh, so that it is possibly a genuine old blade fitted with a new haft for the market. A similar flint blade, more neatly flaked, was brought from Kotzebue Sound by Lieut. Stoney, U.S. Navy, in 1884. The other two flint knives are interesting from being made for use without handles. [Illustration: FIG. 127.--Woman’s knife of flaked flint. 1/3] No. 89691 [1360], Fig. 127, from Sidaru, is an oblong, wedge-shaped spall of gray flint, of which the back still preserves the natural surface of the pebble. It is slightly shaped by coarse flaking along the back and one end, and the edge is finely flaked into a curved outline rounding up at the ends. The specimen is old and dirty, and was probably preserved as a sort of heirloom or amulet. No. 89692 [1178] is a similar spall from a round pebble. Such knives as these are evidently the first steps in the development of the round knife. The shape of the spalls, produced by breaking a round or oval pebble of flint, would naturally suggest using them as knives, and the next step would be to improve the edge by flaking. The greater adaptability of slate, from its softness and easy cleavage, for making such knives would soon be recognized, and we should expect to find, as we do, knives like No. 56672 [191]. The next step would naturally be to provide such a knife with a haft at the point where the stone was grasped by the hand, while reducing this haft so as to leave only just enough for the grasp and cutting away the superfluous corners of the blade would give us the modern form of the blade. Round knives of slate are not peculiar to Point Barrow, but have been collected in many other places in northwestern America.[N279] [Footnote N279: See, especially, Dall, Contrib., vol. 1, pp. 59 and 79, for figures of such knives from the caves of Unalashka.] The relationship between these knives and the semilunar slate blades found in the North Atlantic States has already been ably discussed by Dr. Charles Rau.[N280] It must, however, be borne in mind that while these are sufficiently “fish-cutters” to warrant their admission into a book on fishing, the cutting of fish is but a small part of the work they do. The name “fish-cutter,” as applied to these knives, would be no more distinctive than the name “tobacco-cutter” for a Yankee’s jackknife.[N281] [Footnote N280: Prehistoric Fishing, pp. 183-188.]