“While, as has been noticed, great variety occurs in the shape of the gouges in general, these are long, slender, flat, or slightly concave on the upper side and strongly carinate on the other, so that a cross-section has the form of a narrow, sharply pointed arch. The groove may, as in the figure, extend throughout the whole length, or only part way. The specimen figured is fourteen inches and a half long and rather more than an inch and a half across the edge. There are other gouges that are several inches longer, but by far the larger number are much shorter. Perhaps six or eight inches may be taken as the average length of the gouges of this region. [Illustration: FIG. 241. (S. 1–3.) These are front and side views of beveled celts. The gouge is from Province Ontario, Canada. The side view of the beveled celt illustrates clearly my Class E, under ungrooved hatchets. ] “These finer examples are usually longer. Evidently great care and labor were expended in fashioning such gouges as the long one figured, and they must have been made for some important purpose, but what that purpose was I cannot imagine. Diligent search in various old accounts which early explorers have left us has failed to bring any satisfactory explanation of these singular objects. “But however these were used, there can be no doubt as to the use of most of the gouges. By far the larger portion are of hard stone, well fitted to endure rough service. As the figures in Fig. 253 show, the groove is sometimes short and shallow, sometimes deep and long. In a few it is triangular, as in the middle specimen on the left. This also is an example of a sort of chisel-gouge. In these, of which we have a number of specimens, one end is hollowed and curved to form a regular gouge edge, while the other is straight and beveled to form a chisel. More rarely, both ends are hollowed, and of course in these the groove runs from end to end. As to the use for which the gouges were usually intended, there have been numerous suggestions, but none is entirely satisfactory. “In one of his accounts Champlain speaks of seeing Indians on the coast of Maine making canoes, dug-outs, etc., by charring a properly prepared log and scraping out the burned portions, then charring again, and thus by alternate charring and scraping, they accomplished the desired end. Water poured over portions of the wood that were to be retained confined the burning, which was done with hot stones, to the part to be hollowed.[5] “No theory of the use of these gouges so well explains the excellent condition in which most of them are found as does the one that they were used chiefly in excavating or cutting where wood had been more or less charred. Among considerably more than a hundred of these specimens that have been found in this region, by far the greater number do not show much, if any, effect of use.”