EMPLOYMENT OF SEWING-NEEDLES. 



133 



Fig. 51. 



A piece of Sandstone that has 

 served as a Rubber in making 

 Needles ; from Massat, Ariege*. 



thread. Figure 16 appears to have been made of a splinter taken from the shaft 

 of a Bird's bone. Others, of medium size, must have been made from pieces cut 

 out from the very compact bones of Herbivorous Mammals. Figure 3 in the 

 same Plate shows the upper half of a metatarsal of Reindeer, having on its 

 anterior face a long notch made by saw-cuts, visible on both its sides, by means 

 of which it has been easy to remove from this very hard part of the bone long 

 narrow pieces sufficiently thin to be worked into needles of very small size. The 

 lower portion of a Horse's metacarpal, shown by fig. 13, also bears traces of 

 sawing and longitudinal cuts, made with the same intention. Some Prehistoric 

 Stations of the Reindeer Age have been cited as having yielded needles of ivory ; 

 but as yet, for our part, we do not know of any specimens consisting of that 

 particular material. 



The aforesaid needles of bony substance have nearly always rounded stems ; and 

 most usually they have been carefully polished. When they have not received 

 this polish, it is possible with a lens to distinguish 

 longitudinal stria?, that must have been produced by 

 the finely broken edges of flint flakes, such as served 

 to thin down and to point these little instruments, 

 just as at the present day we use a piece of broken 

 glass to shape and sharpen an awl of bone or hard 

 wood. Perhaps the first polish was given to these 

 bone needles by rubbing them on a piece of sandstone ; 

 and we have found several such examples, bearing 

 straight and rather deep grooves, in which can be 

 placed, as we ourselves have done, the partly reduced 

 splinters of bone, which therein rapidly receive a rough 

 polish by simple rubbing. We here figure (Woodcut, 

 fig. 51) a piece of sandstone, with numerous grooves, 

 which came from the Cave of Massat (Ariege), where, 

 as is well known, M. Alfred Fontan, in the first place, and, subsequently, M. Gar- 

 rigou have found needles of the same type as those figured in our B. Plate XVII. 

 In A. Plate XXIX., among the Stone Implements, are represented three other 



* [In the Christy Collection is a rounded piece of sandstone, about the size of the palm of the hand, hearing 

 grooves made hy rubbing small cylindrical objects on its surface, in different directions. It was obtained 

 from an Indian mound, containing skeletons, near Appalachicola, in Florida. Polished stone celts, chipped 

 arrow-heads, and small earthenware vases were obtained from the same mound, but neither needles nor 

 piercers. EDITOR.] 



