In the past, among archæologists, there has been no little discussion with reference to scrapers. They were mounted in short handles of both bone and wood. Numbers of them have been found in the cliff-houses in the Southwest attached to their original handles. It is unfortunate that in the Mississippi Valley, east of the Great Plains, the climate is such that none of the larger bone tools have withstood decay. At Madisonville, the cemeteries and ash-pits have furnished us with some of the larger bone handles, but elsewhere, all have disappeared. Stone scrapers were inserted by the Plains tribes in bone handles, and under the chapter devoted to bone objects several of the handles will be illustrated. One of these was found near the head of the Missouri River about twenty years ago, and apparently had been lying on the surface for a considerable length of time. It is of old type, and I have taken it to represent how the scrapers in ancient times might have been mounted. There are some similar tools in the Smithsonian, American Museum of Natural History, Peabody Museum, and other institutions. Scrapers are few in New England compared to the Mississippi Valley and the North. [Illustration: FIG. 192. (S. 2–3.) Andover collection. ] In view of the small number of flint implements occurring on the Great Plains, which the Indians called the “buffalo country,” there are more scrapers of yellow chert, poor jasper, and white flint, in proportion to other parts of the country than elsewhere in the United States. By the buffalo country I mean all the territory drained by the following rivers: the Missouri, Red, Brazos, Arkansas, Mississippi, and tributaries. The Indians of this region, particularly of the Dakotas, Nebraska, Kansas, Iowa, and Texas, depended on the buffalo. The buffalo was used by them for manifold purposes: (1) Food; (2) bones for implements and weapons; (3) glue from the hoofs; (4) strings from the sinews; (5) skin for garments; (6) skin for dwellings; (7) skin for boats; (8) hide for packing-cases and bags, shields, etc.; (9) skull for ceremonies; (10) the small bones for rattles; (11) the hair for filling material; (12) droppings for fuel, etc., etc. [Illustration: FIG. 193. (S. 1–1.) Five scrapers from the collection of Stephen Van Rensselaer, Newark, New Jersey. These are of argillite and red chert. The central one is quite unique, having three concavities, all of which show that they have been much used, being polished. ] [Illustration: