Indian to cut a rather thick plate of silver are curious to see. Often,
then, one or two bystanders are called to hold the plate in a horizontal
position, and perhaps another will be asked to hold the points of the
scissors to keep them from spreading. Scissors are sometimes used as
dividers, by being spread to the desired distance and held in position
by being grasped in the hand. By this means I have seen them attempt to
find centers, but not to describe circles. It is probable that had they
trusted to the eye they might have found their centers as well.

Their iron pliers, hammers, and files they purchase from the whites.
Pliers, both flat-pointed and round-pointed, are used as with us. Of
files they usually employ only small sizes, and the varieties they
prefer are the flat, triangular, and rat-tail. Files are used not only
for their legitimate purposes, as with us, but the shanks serve for
punches and the points for gravers, with which figures are engraved on
silver.

The Indians usually make their own cold-chisels. These are not used
where the scissors and file can be conveniently and economically
employed. The re-entrant rectangles on the bracelet represented in Fig.
4, Pl. XIX, were cut with a cold-chisel and finished with a file.

Awls are used to mark figures on the silver. Often they cut out of paper
a pattern, which they lay on the silver, tracing the outline with an
awl. These tools are sometimes purchased and sometimes made by the
Indians. I have seen one made from a broken knife which had been picked
up around the fort. The blade had been ground down to a point.

Metallic hemispheres for beads and buttons are made in a concave matrix
by means of a round-pointed bolt which I will call a die. These tools