EMPLOYMENT OF SEWING-NEEDLES. 135 



We here figure also another needle ("Woodcut, fig. 53), in which the relation of 

 the second " eye " to the place of the first is still more evident. In another 



Fig. 53. Fig. 54. 



Broken Needle, with a new Eye. Broken Needle, with a new Eye partly made. 



specimen (Woodcut, fig. 54) we see the commencement only of the new perfora- 

 tion, shown by the black dot, which was intended to be completely worked into a 

 new " eye " to the broken needle. 



So also when the point of a needle was broken, the Cave-folks proceeded to refit 

 it for use, though shortened, as can well be seen in figs. 17-20 of B. Plate XVII. 

 It is even easy to see in figs. 18 and 20 that, in the broken needles, the point has 

 been made by means of simple longitudinal cuts, and the workman has not taken 

 the trouble to make the point round by smoothing off the angles. 



It has been thought by some that these needles made of bone and Reindeer 

 antler, and so slight in the stem, could not have offered sufficient resistance to 

 the necessary pressure for piercing skins joined edge on edge, and that really the 

 perforations must have been made with an ordinary awl, the needle only carrying 

 the sewing-thread. But the operation thus conducted would have been more 

 complicated, and quite as long as if the workman had simply employed the 

 bodkin or the awl in use among shoemakers and harness-makers. We have also 

 seen, in the detailed account which Captain Parry has given of the mode of 

 sewing among the Esquimaux women (see above, p. 132), that, by means of a 

 preparatory manipulation, they render the skins well suited for the direct use 

 of their bone and ivory needles ; and the seams are actually impermeable to water, 

 so perfectly and ingeniously are they stitched together. 



There are, however, among the specimens figured in B. Plate XVII., some very 

 long and slender Needles (such as figs. 7-12) which it would be difficult to 

 suppose could bear without breaking the pressure necessary to force such a needle 



u2 



