MURDOCH. ] WHETSTONES. 183 
One native very neatly mended a musket barrel which had been 
water. 
He cut a section from another old 
cracked by firing too heavy a charge. 
barrel of somewhat larger caliber, which he heated until it had expanded 
enough to slip down over the crack, and then allowed it to shrink on. 
Whetstones (ipiksaun).—Knives are generally sharpened with a file, 
cutting a bevel, as before mentioned, on one face of the blade only. 
To “set” or “turn” 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 
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Fic. 162.—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 
aslender 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. 89618 [801], Fig. 162a, has been selected as the type. 
It is of hard black stone, probably jade, 6°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 43 inches long. 
