Notes on Hawaiian Petroglyphs. 



37 



mering or pecking with a beach pebble, as the measurements of 

 the grooves might indicate. Previous observers have been wont 

 to refer to the native stone adze as the cutting implement for the 

 petroglyphs they were describing, but even if the stone adze could 

 keep its edge when cutting into stone strata sometimes as hard as 

 itself, there is nothing in the petroglyphs or within reason to de- 



fig. 4. 



fig. 5. 



monstrate why the workers should ignore a simple and effective 

 tool like a pebble, which they could obtain anywhere without effort, 

 in favor of the laboriously wrought stone adze. Dr. Brigham 9 has 

 demonstrated the facility with which the natives could use the 

 beach pebbles when working in stone, and the writer has seen 

 natives of today hammer out their names or initials on a flat rock, 

 in neat and symmetrical letters, with nothing but a small stone 



'Hawaiian Stone Implements, Mem. B. P. B. M., vol. i. 



[261] 



