356 



BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY 



[bull. 60 



ac(}uired winding them taut the other way. Sudden removal of the 

 pressure on the disk causes the unwinding of the strands below, 

 twirling the shaft in the opposite direction. By quick repetition of 

 these movements the motion is kept up and the work goes steadily on. 



According to Chapman/ the New Zealanders attached weights to 

 the drill shaft to increase the boring capacity (fig. 222, a). (Mc- 

 Guire.) Again the shaft was weighted b}' spool or top-shaped bits 

 of heavy wood (fig. 222, Ij). (McGuire.) ' 



Dr. Ran seems to have been the first to demonstrate the primitive 

 methods of drilling stone, but his success in the beginning was not 

 flattering.- Others since have met with more gratifying success. So 

 far as published accounts go, Mr. J. D. ]\IcGuire seems to have ac- 



FiG. 222. Weighted drills. 



complished the most. Describing his experiments in drilling cat- 

 linite with bow and pump drills, Mr. McGuire states^ that in starting 

 the hole the point of the drill, if of copper or stone, readily took hold 

 of the stone, but that wood and bone did not do so unless supple- 

 mented by sand. Trouble was caused by choking from the powdered 

 stone and sand before the hole was very deep. By working with the 

 stone under water the smaller particles floated otf, a condition which 

 made it possible for the cutting to proceed to advantage. The jasper 

 point was found most etfective, and its effectiveness Avas much en- 

 hanced by the use of water. The drill point, however, required fre- 

 quent shari)ening. A hole 5 inches deep in a piece of catlinite was 

 drilled in al)out three hours with a })ump drill. A jasper point was 



1 Chapman, On the Working of Greenstone or Nephrite by the Maoris, p. 496. 



- Rail, Drilling- in Stone with Metals, p. 392 ; also, Aboriginal Stone Drilling, p. 536. 

 Palcnijuc Tablet. (Evans, Kellar.) 



2 McGuire, Materials, Apparatus, and I'rocesses of the Aboriginal Lapidary, p. 172. 



