236 SAVAGE WEAPONS AT THE CENTENNIAL EXHIBITION. 



New South Wales exhibit showed a collection of spalls of greenstone 

 and sandstone obtained by the natives by merely dashing bowlders 

 together and picking up the pieces which most nearly approximated the 

 desired form. Those shown in the collection were of sandstone, con- 



Fig. 3C. — Stone spalls for axes, Clarence River, New South Wales. 



glomerate, slate, basalt, and trachyte. Such axes, when helved, are used 

 by the natives in ascending and for felling trees, cutting firewood, in 

 war and the chase, and for cutting themselves to embellish their bodies 

 with cicatrized wounds. 



In many countries are to be found famous localities yielding stones 

 for axes. In Nan-hin-fu, in the province of Kwantong, in Southern 

 China, 09 they find in the mountains a heavy stone, which furnishes 

 materials for cutting-tools for the region around. Obsidian is used in 

 Mexico, Khainschatka, 70 and elsewhere. 



The stone axes and adzes of the Philadelphia Exhibition may be con- 

 sidered together. The difference in the tools is in the relation of the 

 cutting edge to the handle. In the axe the line of the edge is in the 

 plane of the handle. In the adze the edge is across the plane of its 

 sweep. The examples afforded us may bo classed in two divisions: first, 

 stone and shell ; second, metal. The subdivision which will be most 

 useful will be as to the four methods of mounting the axe-head in or on 

 Hie handle: and we have instances of each in the stone axes, and of 

 three out of the four in the metallic axes, and this without going outside 

 of the crude implements shown in Philadelphia. 



The four modes of mounting or helving an axe are: 



1. By winding a withe around it. 



2. By lashing it to a seat on the handle. 



3. By passing the tang through a hole in the handle. 



4. By passing the helve through a hole in the head. 



«Grosier, u De la Chine," Paris, 1818, i, 191. 

 7n Eriuan, "Iieise," iii, 453. 



