242 



FIRE^ COOKING^ AND VESSELS. 



piece of the same stone imbedded, with a countersunk cavity. 

 This held firmly between the teeth directs the tool. Any work- 

 man would be astonished at the performance of this tool on 

 ivory ; but having once tried it myself, I found the jar or vi- 

 bration on the jaws, head, and brain, quite enough to prevent 

 my repeating it.'^^ There is a set of Esquimaux apparatus for 

 making fire in the same manner, in the Edinburgh Industrial 



Fig. 25. 



Museum, and Fig. 25 is intended to' show the way in which 

 it is worked. The thong-drill with the mouthpiece has been 

 found in use in the Aleutian Islands, both for boring holes and 

 for making fire.^ Lastly, there is a kind of cord-drill used by 

 the New Zealanders in boring holes through hard greenstone, 

 etc., in which the spindle itself is weighted. It is described as 

 a " sharp wooden stick ten inches long, to the centre of which 

 two stones are attached, so as to exert pressure and perform 

 the office of a fly-wheel. The requisite rotatory motion is 

 given to the stick by two strings pulled alternately."^ There 

 must of course be some means of keeping the spindle upright. 

 The New Zealanders do not seem to have used their drill for 

 fire-making as well as for boring, but to have kept to their 

 stick-and-groove. 



» Sir E. Belclier, in Tr. Eth. Soc, 1861, p. 140. 



2 Kotzebue, vol. iii. p. 155. 



3 Thomson, ' New Zealand,' toI. i. p. 203. 



