468 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



a piece of hoop-iron. Every man almost carried one of these 

 small adzes hung on his left shoulder. From the houses large 

 adze blades made of Tridacna and Hippopus shell were obtained. 

 They resemble somewhat those of the Carolines, but are very 

 roughly made indeed, only the actual edge being ground. None 

 were seen mounted, and they appeared to have gone out of use. 

 Axes made of hard volcanic rock were also obtained from the 

 houses. They have ground surfaces and are triangular in form, 

 and resemble the stone adzes of the Solomons, but are mounted 

 in an entirely different and very primitive way, as axes, being 

 merely jammed in a slot cut in a club-like billet of hard wood 

 near its end. Only one specimen was obtained mounted. These 

 stone implements did not seem plentiful, and the natives valued 

 them highly and required, a high price for them ; and when I at 

 first showed them a Humboldt Bay stone axe, to try and explain 

 that I wished to buy such from them, they were immediately 

 anxious to purchase it themselves. The chief had a very fine 

 large one, with which he would not part. 



The heads of the obsidian-headed lances serve as knives, 

 being cut off just below the ornamented mounting which acts as 

 a handle.* Long flakes of obsidian are however also mounted 

 specially as knives in short handles. They are excessively 

 sharp, and used to shave with even, but are of course very 

 brittle. Pieces of pearl oyster shell, usually semi-circular in 

 shape, ground down thin to an edge on the rounded border, are 

 used constantly as knives to cut cordage, and for similar pur- 

 poses. Knives made of the spine of a Sting-ray (Trygoii) are 

 also used. Large ground pearl oyster shells are used to dig 

 with. 



The Admiralty Islanders have no bows, slings, or throwing 

 sticks, ulas (Fiji), nor clubs. Their only weapons are lances of 

 several kinds, which are thrown with the unaided hand, not 

 even with a cord, as in New Caledonia. They have no spears, 

 like the Humboldt Bay men, Fijians, and others, to be used at 



* This is an interesting instance of the same instruments serving 

 different purposes in a rude condition of the arts, other cases of which 

 have been dwelt on by Colonel Lane Fox, F.E.S., Lecture "On Primitive 

 Warfare," Journal of the Royal United Service Institution, 1867-9. 



