OF THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 1 33 



One great lesson we of these modern days might learn from 

 those primitive peoples, is patience. The time they occupied in 

 fashioning and decorating their implements out of the hardest of 

 stones, must have been considerable, and modern examples might 

 be adduced to show that the more elaborately finished articles were 

 the work of several lives. 



A modern explorer among the Pacific group of New Britain, 

 describes the making of a stone implement thus : the native takes a 

 piece of granite which he places in a slow fire of cocoanut shells^ 

 which gives an immense heat and allows it to become red hot. He 

 then by the aid of a split bamboo, in the place of tongs, removes it 

 from the fire and begins to drop water upon it drop by drop, each 

 drop falling exactly upon the same place. That portion of the stone 

 on which the water falls begins to crack and fly off until the heat is 

 gone out of the stone. He then repeats the operation until an irreg- 

 ular hole is formed through the centre. He then fixes a stick through 

 it and takes it to a large granite rock in which is a dint like a small 

 basin ; he hits the stone on the rock until all the rough corners are 

 knocked off and it is worn fairly round ; then takes the end of the 

 stick and pressing the stone down into the hollow of the rock, makes 

 the stick revolve rapidly between his hands, weighing it with other 

 stones fastened to the top of his stick, until that side of the stone 

 is worn perfectly round and smooth. He then shifts the other side 

 of the stone downwards and works at that until both are smooth and 

 even, choosing a handle of tough wood about four feet long, on 

 which he fixes the stone with gum from the bread fruit tree, leaving 

 about four inches protruding at one end beyond the stone. From 

 this description we may infer how much labor was employed in the 

 manufacture of the quantites of stone implements found in so many 

 different parts of the world. 



The fourth and fifth divisions of the subject bring us within the 

 period when metals were the chief article of value. The old was 

 giving place to the new. Men were abandoning their ancient mode 

 of living and adopting more stationary habits. Agriculture was in a 

 great measure displacing hunting and fishing as a means of subsis- 

 tence. Many of the domestic animals which we use had been intro- 

 duced, were making their way into the every-day life of the people, 



