218 cook's first voyage 1769. 



to fabricate one of their principal vessels with their 

 tools is as great a work, as to build a British man of 

 war with ours. 



They have an adze of stone ; a chissel, or gouge 

 of bone, generally that of a man's arm between the 

 wrist and elbow ; a rasp of coral ; and the skin of a 

 sting-ray, with coral sand, as a file or polisher. 



This is a complete catalogue of their tools, and 

 with these they build houses, construct canoes, hew 

 stone, and fell, cleave, carve, and polish timber. 



The stone which makes the blade of their adzes is 

 a kind of Basaltes, of a blackish or grey colour, not 

 very hard, but of considerable toughness : they are 

 formed of different sizes ; some, that are intended 

 for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds ; others, 

 that are used for carving, not more than so many 

 ounces ; but it is necessary to sharpen both almost 

 every minute ; for which purpose, a stone and a 

 cocoa-nut shell full of water are always at hand. 



Their greatest exploit, to which these tools are 

 less equal than to any other, is felling a tree : this 

 requires many hands, and the constant labour of 

 several days. When it is down, they split it, with 

 the grain, into planks from three to four inches 

 thick, the whole length and breadth of the tree, 

 many of which are eight feet in the girt, and forty 

 to the branches, and nearly of the same thickness 

 throughout. The tree generally used is, in their 

 language, called Avie, the stem of which is tall and 

 straight ; though some of the smaller boats are made 

 of the bread-fruit tree, which is a light spongy 

 wood, and easily wrought. They smooth the plank 

 very expeditiously and dexterously with their adzes, 

 and can take off a thin coat from a whole plank with- 

 out missing a stroke. As they have not the art of 

 warping a plank, every part of the canoe, whether 

 hollow or flat, is shaped by hand. 



The canoes, or boats, which are used by the inha- 

 bitants of this and the neighbouring islands, may be 



