68 Field Museum of Natural History — Anth., Vol. X. 



used in acupuncture (no specimens having come down to us), but it 

 may be supposed that it belonged to the class of stone from which 

 arrow-heads were made.' "* 



In some localities, "stones of the Thunder-God" of special fame 

 are pointed out. Thus, e. g., according to the Imperial Geography 

 (Ta TsHng i t'ung chi), there is in the north-west of the city of Nan- 

 feng in Kiang-si Province a summit in the shape of a lotus-flower 

 {Lien hua feng) , on the top of which there is a stone of the Thunder- 

 God. Also the Emperor K'ang-hi shows himself familiar with thunder- 

 bolts in his Jottings on Natural Science (translated in Memoires con- 

 cernant les Chinois, Vol. IV, p. 474, Paris, 1779); he says that their 

 shapes and materials vary according to the localities, and that the 

 nomadic Mongols, whereby he understands Mongols proper and 

 Tungusians on the eastern sea-coasts, avail themselves of such im- 

 plements in the manner of copper and steel; some are shaped like 

 hatchets, others like knives, and some like mallets, some of blackish, 

 and others of greenish color. 



It is a favorite idea inferred a priori that stone implements must be 

 infinitely old and called prehistoric. For stone implements found on 

 Chinese soil at least, this is merely illusory, as we have trustworthy 

 historical accounts relating to the manufacture of such implements 

 in comparatively recent time. Thus, e. g., it is recorded in the geo- 

 graphical work Huan yii ki written by Lo Shi at the end of the tenth 

 century that the people in the present locality of T'eng hien (in Wu- 

 chou fu, Kuang-si Province) manufacture knives and swords of a 

 dark-colored (or green) stone (tsHng.shih) of which their women turn 

 out armlets and rings; with the former, it takes the place of iron and 

 copper, with the latter of pearls and gems. 2 This notice would become 

 one of importance, if stone objects of this description would ever turn 

 up in that district which, without any additional evidence, would 

 have to be dated in the tenth century a. d. 



There are even still more recent accounts of stone implements 

 actually manufactured. Johan Neuhof (Die Gesantschaft der Ost- 

 Indischen Gesellschaft, p. 317, Amsterdam, 1669) mentions the occur- 

 rence near the city of Nan-hing in Kuang-tung Province of a kind of 

 stones so hard that the inhabitants can make from them hatchets and 



1 Then follows a note concerning flint arrow-heads which it is not necessary to 

 reproduce, as we are familiar with its contents. It is, however, interesting to see that 

 to Li Shih-chdn the flint arrow-heads come only from the country of the Su-sh6n. 



2 The same account is given also in the Pen ts'ao kang mu (Section on Stones, 

 Ch. 10, p. 36b) where the clause is added: "The people of that district, in bringing 

 a field under cultivation, use a knife (i. e. mattock) made of stone and over a foot 

 long." 



