208 THE STONE AGE — PAST AND PRESENT. 



other far less cultured races ; the mountains of Kwan-tong and 

 the other southern provinces being especially inhabited by such 

 rude and seemingly aboriginal tribes. There is, besides, a Chi- 

 nese tradition speaking of the use of stone for weapons among 

 themselves in early times, which implies at least the knowledge 

 that this is a state of things characterizing a race at a low stage 

 of culture, and may really embody a recollection of their own 

 early history ; Fu-hi, they say, made weapons. These were of 

 wood, those of Shin-nung were of stone, and Chi-yu made 

 metal ones.^ 



Among the great Tatar race to which the Turks and Mon- 

 gols, and our Hungarians, Lapps, and Finns belong, accounts 

 of a Stone Age may be found, in the most remarkable of which 

 the widely prevaiUng idea that stone instruments found buried 

 in the ground are thunderbolts, is very well brought into view. 

 In the Chinese Encyclopasdia of the emperor Kang-hi, who 

 began to reign in 1662, the following passage occurs : — 



" ' Lightning-stones.' — The shape and substance of lightning- 

 stones vary according to place. The wandering Mongols, 

 whether of the coasts of the eastern sea, or the neighbourhood 

 of the Sha-mo, use them in the manner of copper and steel. 

 There are some of these stones which have the shape of a 

 hatchet, others that of a knife, some are made like mallets. 

 These lightning-stones are of different colours ; there are 

 blackish ones, others are greenish. A romance of the time of 

 the Tang, says that there was at Yu-men-si a great Miao de- 

 dicated to the Thunder, and that the people of the country 

 used to make offerings there of different things, to get some of 

 these stones. This fable is ridiculous. The lightning-stones are 

 metals, stones, pebbles, which the fire of the thunder has meta- 

 morphosed by splitting them suddenly and uniting inseparably 

 different substances. There are some of these stones in which 

 a kind of vitrification is distinctly to be observed."* 



Moreover, within the last century the Tunguz of North- 

 Eastern Siberia, belonging to the same Tatar race, were using 



' Groguet, vol. iii. p. 331. 



- ' Meraoires concernant I'Histoire, etc., des Chinois, par les Missionnaires de 

 Pekin ;' Paris, 1776, etc., vol. iv. p. 474 Elemm, C. Gr., vol. vi. p. 467. 



