WHETSTONES. 



183 



water. One native very neatly mended a musket barrel which had been 

 cracked by firing too heavy a charge. He out. a section from another old 

 barrel of somewhat larger caliber, which IK* heated until it had expanded 

 enough to slip down over the crack, and then allowed it to shrink on. 



}YheMoHen (ipiksaun). Knives are generally sharpened with a file, 

 cutting a bevel, as before mentioned, on one face of the blade only. 

 To &quot;set&quot; or &quot;turn&quot; the edge they use pieces of steel of various shapes, 

 generally with a hole drilled in them so that they can be hung to the 

 breeches belt by a lanyard. One man, for instance, used about half of 



Flo. 102. Jade whetstones. 



a razor blade for this purpose, and another a small horseshoe magnet. 

 In former times they employed a very elegant implement, consisting of 

 a slender rod of jade from 3 to 7 inches long, with a lanyard attached to 

 an eye in the larger end. These were sometimes made by cutting a 

 piece from one of the old jade adzes in the manner already described. 

 There are a few of these whetstones still in use at the present day, and 

 they are very highly prized. We succeeded in obtaining nine speci 

 mens, of which No. 89018 [801], Fig. 102, has been selected as the type. 

 It is of hard black stone, probably jade, G-3 inches long. Through the 

 wider end is drilled a large eye, into which is neatly spliced one end 

 of a stout flat braid of sinew 4J inches long. 



