Chapman. — On the Worhimj of Greenstone. 525 



tained the greenstone. He failed to find the dyke, ^Y]lich was 

 my experience thirteen years later; but I am now informed 

 that it is higher up the spur. Some greenstone is said to be 

 found on a stream in the opposite side of the sound. Short- 

 land gives, in addition to Arahura, both places — " Wakatipu, a 

 lake in the interior, one of the sources of the Matau ; and Pio- 

 piotahi, a torrent on the south-west coast;" and mentions 

 that at the latter place a block some tons in weight lay in the 

 stream. A whaler, finding this, got up a company in Sydney 

 to work it for the China market. After much labour and 

 destruction of tools they found that it was spotted and would 

 not take the China market. It sold in Wellington for one 

 shilling per pound. 



3. The Drill. 



The description of the drill is singularly interesting. The 

 fly-wheel was originally a couple of very heavy stones, of 

 which I have several in my collection. Mr. White's descrip- 

 tion suggests the top of the drill-spindle working in a drill- 

 head or mouthpiece. Mr. Wohlers makes it work without 

 this support. Whether the primitive Maoris ever had a 

 mouthpiece is doubtful : to any one who has used a drill it 

 would seem incredible that a man who had once used one 

 should ever try and work a drill without one. The late Mr. 

 I. N. Watt, Sheriff of Otago, who was a very clever mechani- 

 cian, told me that when he first went to Taranaki, of which 

 province he was Superintendent, the Maoris had a very primi- 

 tive drill. He taught them to make and use the bird-cage 

 drill, and they at once abandoned their own. The primitive 

 drill was identical with the balanced drill described by Mr. 

 Wohlers. Mr. Watt informed me that the first he saw was 

 steadily and accurately worked, boring a piece of greenstone, 

 by a blind old man. The statement as to the character of the 

 drill is confirmed by my brother-in-law, Mr. M. Cook, of this 

 city, who tells me that in 1888 he saw an old Maori at Eotorua, 

 in the North Island, sitting on the ground, holdmg down a 

 hei-tiki by means of his two great toes, and drilling a hole 

 through it, using such a drill as is above described, supporting 

 it by merely balancing it. 



This is the answer to Mr. Tyler's remark upon an appa- 

 rent omission in Thomson's description of this drill (" Story 

 of New Zealand," vol. i., p. 203) : " There must, of course, be 

 some means of keeping the spindle upright " (Tyler's " Early 

 History of Mankind," p. 242). " Captain Cook could not ascer- 

 tain how holes were bored in the handles of greenstone meres, 

 as he saw no instrument sufficiently hard for that purpose. It 

 is now known that these holes are drilled with a sharp wooden 



