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Flint knapping

Stone Conversations : Archive 5 : Message 00858

From: abknight@zzzzzz
Date: Sat, 22 May 2004 22:03:07 -0500 (CDT)
Subject: Flint knapping


Interesting to see Brighton beach all of flint. Chert we
call it here. And to think of silicosis from it! We are
in a limstone area and that pretty much melts like wet
sugar compared to the chert. Though it occurs in beds
usually only several feet thick it is the rock that is the
large gravel that is left on all our hillsides and it is
the gravel and loose rock of all our creeks. I used to
live near a native American chert quarry. It was about
eight feet deep into a hill top and the area of a tennis
court and products made from it were no doubt distributed
widely. A hill top is a good place for a quarry for there
is no overburden to be removed. Chert is also a likely
canidate to form a hill top or an outcrop given its
toughness. The Caddo bluffs in Arkansas are white and
from a four hundred foot thick bed of chert which I think
I read is very unusually thick. Very strange and very
sharp. No place for bare feet!
Missouri is adiffucult place for a dry waller for all our
field stones are chert and there are more or less oblong
or round. So you get "cobblestone". It takes alot of
mortar but it has a great rough look to it and a great
ochre color. I've no pictures but people get quite
roccoco with it texturally including protruding stone.

Bill

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