ART OF DRILLING. 547 



to kill even the largest game with arrows and spears tipped 

 with stone. Knives, again, of stone, are much more effective 

 than might at first be expected, and many savage tribes 

 readily cut flesh with pieces of shell or of hard wood. 



The neatness with which the Hottentots, Esquimaux, North 

 American Indians, etc., are able to sew, is very remarkable, 

 although awls and sinews would in our hands be but poor 

 substitutes for needles and thread. As already mentioned in 

 p. 331, some cautious archaeologists hesitated to refer the rein- 

 deer caves of the Dordogne to the Stone Age, on account of 

 the bone needles and the works of art which are found in 

 them. The eyes of the needles especially, they thought, could 

 only be made with metallic implements. Professor Lartet 

 ingeniously removed these doubts by making a similar needle 

 for himself with the help of a flint ; but he might have referred 

 to the fact stated by Cook* in his first voyage, that the New 

 Zealanders succeeded in drilling a hole through a piece of 

 glass which he had given them, using for this purpose, as he 

 supposed, a piece of jasper. 



The Brazilians also use ornaments of imperfectly crystal- 

 lized quartz, from four to eight inches long and about an inch 

 in diameter. Hard as it is, they contrive to drill a hole at 

 each end, using for that purpose the pointed leaf-shoot of the 

 large wild plantain, with sand and water. The hole is gene- 

 rally transverse, but the ornaments of the chiefs are actually 

 pierced lengthways. This, Mr. Wallace thinks, must be a 

 work of years.-)- 



The works of art found in the Dordogne caves are little 

 ruder than those of the Esquimaux or the North American 

 Indians. In fact, the appreciation of art is to be regarded 

 rather as an ethnological characteristic than as an indication 

 of any particular stage in civilization. We see, again, that in 

 many cases a certain knowledge of agriculture has preceded 



* Vol. iii. p. 464. t Travels on the Amazon, p. 278. 



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