1880.] ^* [Phillips. 



ing pointed sticks. The palfeolithic implements, if sucli they really be, are 

 scarce. I have one very fine specimen from Proceso Fountain, Victoria, 

 West. It is not of flint but formed of some hard metamorphic rock." 



On the 30th of November, 1878, Mr. V. Ball read before the Royal Irish 

 Academy, an essay "on the forms and geographical distribution of stone 

 implements in India," in which country he had resided several 5'ears. He 

 goes into the subject at considerable length discussing the various finds in 

 (1) Madras, (2) Hyderabad and the Berars, (3) the Central Provinces and 

 Baudelkhand, (4) Rajputana and Central India, (5) Bombay, (6) Sind and 

 Beluchistan, (7) Bengal and Orissa, (8) A.ssam and adjoining countries, 

 (9) Burmah, (10) Andaman Islands, (11) Sumatra and (12) Java. Asa 

 rule these implements are of the usual types, some, however, in Baudel- 

 khand being evidently symbols of the Lingam, some being perforated 

 stones ; sometimes they are "well-shaped knives," discoidal objects, flakes 

 and arrow-heads, all palseolithic (only one polished celt having been found 

 in the Madras presidency), and a very few polished celts approximating to 

 the unshouldered Burmese forms have been discovered in Assam. In the 

 Burmese implements, however, the cutting surface has a chisel-like edge, 

 while the Assamese tools have the edges ground down on both sides. In 

 the Andaman Islands at the present day, Mr. Ball states, there inhabit a 

 race of people who manufacture flakes from flint pebbles. " The Burmese 

 call these implements mo-jio, thunder chain, or thunder-bolt, and believe 

 that they descend with the lightning flash. It is supposed to possess many 

 occult virtues, one of the chief of which is to render its wearer invulner- 

 able, and many an unlucky mo-jio has succumbed to the popular test, which 

 is to wrap it in a cloth and fire a bullet at it at short range. If the man 

 misses the cloth the authenticity and power of the charm is at once estab- 

 lished : if the stone is fractured it is held not to be a real mo-jio. Other 

 less severe tests are also applied. Fowls, it is supposed, will not venture 

 near rice on which a real mo-jio is lying ; fire will not consume a house 

 that contains one ; a plantain tree cut down with one will not sprout 

 again ; and last, but not the least in esteem, the owner of a real mo-jio can 

 cut a rainbow in half with it." 



In Java a considerable series of chipped implements and polished celts 

 has been found, "which have been reported on by a commission appointed 

 for the purpose by the French Academy of Science." 



Mr. Ball (p. 399 1 calls particular attention to a ring stone, too heavy for a 

 spindle whorl or net sinker, and which he believes was really a weapon of 

 ofience to be grasped in the hand anil used, as he expressed it, as a sort of 

 "knuckle duster," in an encounter between men and wild animals. The 

 chief point of interest about it is its very-close resemblance to forms which 

 have not uncommonly been met with in Europe, and likewise in Pennsyl- 

 vania, Virginia and other parts of North America. 



Accompanying Mr. Ball's paper is a map of the geographical dis- 

 tribution of stone implements in India. "The chipped quartzites occur 

 throughout a vast area north and south from Sangor to Madras, east 

 and west from Raniganj in Bengal, to Neemuch in Rajputana. Even 



