HOLMES] ABORIGINAL AMERICAJST ANTIQUITIES PART I 357 



first used, but it began to choke when the hole was one-half or three- 

 fourths of an inch deep. A pine drill was then used wdth dry sand, 

 but the point wore away very fast. The addition of water made 

 matters worse, for it softened the wood, and the dust from the catlin- 

 ite formed a puttylike mass, which choked the drill. A shaft of ash 

 wood was substituted for the pine and dry sand instead of wet, 

 whereupon the drill ran smoothly, and by giving a slight jumping 

 motion to the shaft a great deal of dust was expelled with the sand 

 and work progressed satisfactorily. A proper drill of copper would 

 have cut the same hole, possibly, in an hour; one of jasper with sand 

 would have done the work, probably, in two hours. On the jasper 

 the three drills were used with all kinds of available points, includ- 

 ing quartz, nephrite, and copper; even hard steel drills were tried. 

 All were equally unsuccessful, nothing penetrating this obdurate 

 material. A copjDer point on a pump drill used with emery, however, 

 started the work and in time would have completed it. 



McGuire's experiments demonstrated the wide range of devices 

 and materials available to the primitive lapidary and the absolute 

 need of long, intelligent experiment to find out the available and 

 effective combinations for each and all. When we consider the diffi- 

 culties met with by McGuire in his experiments the drilling feats of 

 the aborigines become a source of wonderment. 



The processes of manufacture and the implements emploj^ed must 

 be considered, at least briefly, in connection with the descriptions of 

 the separate classes of artifacts in subsequent volumes, but this repe- 

 tition occurs only in cases in which the implements were employed in 

 stone shaping, and involves little real duplication. 



