DRILLING IN STONE WITHOUT METAL. 



395 



Jilt 



il'O. 



in consequence of wear, was considerable, and I bad to replace it several times. 

 The first was of toug-h ash wood ; the others, which consisted of pine wood, 

 proved to be just as officiont. 



In the beginning of the work there appeared at the place of perforation a 

 smooth, round spot. Becoming gradually larger, it formed a shallow basin, which 

 finally, when the stone was drilled half through, assuuied the appearance of a 

 conical or funnel-shaped cavity, 'i'he deeper the drill penetrated into the stone 

 the nu)re difficult the work became, which induced me, after having drilled 

 through half the thickness of the stone, to begin another bore at the opposite 

 side. In due time it met the first exactly in the middle. It was originally my 

 intention to drill a lude of aboiit three-quarters of an inch in diameter, but I had 

 not made sufficient allowance for the lateral friction of the saiul, and hence it 

 happened that the two conical cavities forming the perforation acquired, much 

 against my wish, greater proportions than I expected, measuring, in fact, an inch 

 and a quarter in their widest diameters. They would have become narrower 

 as well as more cylindrical, if I had used a drill half as thick as that which served 

 in the operation 5 but when I made this discovery- the work was already too far 



advanced to be commenced again. Fig. 5 

 shows the present shape of the perforation. 

 It is round and smooth, without exhibiting 

 those circular furrows, which I have already 

 ascribed to the action of a hollow drill. In 

 order to complete the task in its fullest 

 extent by producing a perfectly cylindri- 

 cal hole, it would be necessary to remove, 

 by continued drilling, the projectingrim between the dotted lines : a laborprobably 

 requiring as much time as that hitherto consumed. I cannot say whether I shall 

 have sufiicient leisure and palieuce to perform it ; for the present I am satisfied 

 with the fact of having; perhaps, practically illustrated one of the methods of 

 drilling employed during the age of stone. Of course, it would be rashness on my 

 part to assert that the apparatus used by me had also served as a drilling imple- 

 ment in ancient Europe ;.yet the possibility cannot be denied, for just as the 

 Iroquois invented it for producing fire, the ancient nations of Europe may have 

 constructed it for another purpose. Mr. Desor thinks it probable that the drill- 

 ing was effected by means of very thin flakes of flint fixed around a stick, which 

 was made to turn in such a way as to separate a portion of the stone, which, 

 when the perforation was accomplished, would fall to the ground.* A drllling- 

 -TTj. p stick of this description really may have served for per- 



J' forating soft stones, but could not be successfully ajiplicd 



to hard materials. I operated myself with such a diill 

 on diorite, and found the flint flakes invariably break olf 

 alter the first revolutions. Yet, whatever may have been 

 . the means employed in diilliiig stone in the pre-h'.storic 



I W^ 9 ages of Europe, it is certain tliat the carefully fashioned 



* 3 and pierced implements must have possessed a very high 



value in the eyes of their manufacturers. Some indication 

 of this fact is offered by the occurrence of the edged halves 

 of axes broken across the shaft-hole, which liM been ren- 

 dered sen'iceable again l)y a second perforation. A speci- 

 men of this kind, of which the annexed reduced sketch 

 (Fig. (i) presents the upper view, is preserved in the Fea- 

 l)0(ly Museum at Cambridge, jMassachusetts. It was foimd 

 in northern (icnnany. The shaft-hole, which lias been left in an unfinished 

 state, evidently was formed by a solid drill. The material of this relic is 

 variet}'^ of greenstone. » 



r 



TalafiUes, Sec, p. :559. 



