Feb., 1912. 



Jade. 



47 



atite schist, with the exception of the grooved hammer, which is diorite, 

 but all of them are highly polished. 



In glancing over the eleven objects represented on the three Plates 

 X-XII, it will be noticed that all of them lack that one characteristic 

 feature of the Shensi implements, the perforation. Mr. Couling has, 

 however, succeeded in finding at a later 

 date a perforated chisel, reproduced after 

 a sketch of his in Fig. 7, of a grayish 

 white hard marble-like stone with slightly 

 convex lateral edges and with a perforation 

 not far above the centre of the surface. 

 The borings have been effected from each 

 face, meeting inexactly at the middle, as 

 shown by the dotted lines in the sketch. 

 This piece perfectly agrees in shape with 

 the corresponding types of Shensi and has 

 probably been used as a mattock. 



Perforations in stone implements have 

 had a significance and a purpose; if they 

 are large enough to allow the insertion of 

 a wooden or bone haft, we shall not fail to 

 conclude that such has actually been the 

 case. If the perforations are so small in 

 diameter that such a contrivance seems out 

 of the question, we are led to the belief 

 that they served only for the passage of a 

 thong or cord from which the implement 



was suspended and perhaps fastened to the girdle, or that some kind of 

 ceremonial usage was involved ; we may infer in this latter case that the 

 perforation has the function of a conventional survival in remembrance 

 of its former more intense utilization. As Giglioli correctly supposed, 

 the broad rectangular type of stone chisel with large eye near the back 

 seems to have served as a mattock in husbandry. I am not inclined to 

 think that pieces of precious jade in beautiful colors have ever been 

 turned to such a purpose; but if we realize that such types as repre- 

 sented on Plate II, Fig. 2, and Plate IV were simply made of ordinary 

 stone with all necessary adaptations, we can recognize in them the 

 agricultural implement in question. And in the specimen from Shan- 

 tung (Fig. 7) a real mattock of common stone has come down to us. 



In certain parts of northern China, such mattocks are still actually 

 in use. W. W. Rockhill (Diary of a Journey through Mongolia and 

 Tibet, p. 46) made the following observation on the bank of the Yellow 



Fig. 7. 

 Perforated Stone Chisel from Shan- 

 tung (after Sketch furnished by Mr. 

 Couling). 



