ETHNOLOGY IIEDLEY. 257 



inventions now spread through the Pacific."* If so they must have 

 been transmitted to Hawaii by the Micronesians. A possible source 

 of the ancient, simple, shaft drill of the Pacific, is Japan, where 

 Morse thus describes its use : " For drilling holes, a very long- 

 handled awl is used. The carpenter, seizing the handle at the 

 end, between the palms of his hands, and moving his hands rapidly 

 back and forth, pushing down at the same time, the awl is made 

 rapidly to rotate back and forth ; as his hands gradually slip 

 down on the handle, he quickly seizes it at the upper end again, 

 continuing the motion as before."! Such a drill is introduced into 

 a scene in the island of Rawak, Dutch New Guinea.! Cook 

 noticed this simpler form of drill from Tahiti, and he observed 

 awls armed with sharks' teeth used by the Tongans and the 

 Maories. The Maori greenstone meris are said to have been 

 drilled with a weighted strap drill. " To drill the hole for the 

 thong in the handle . . . pieces of sharp flint are set in the end 

 of a split stick, being lashed in very neatly. The stick is about 

 fifteen or eighteen inches long, and is to become the spindle of a 

 large teetotum drill. For the circular plate of this instrument 

 the hardened intervertebral cartilage of a whale is taken. A hole 

 is made through, and the stick firmly and accurately fixed in it. 

 Two strings are then attached to the upper end of the stick, and 

 by pulling them a rapid rotatory motion is given to the drill. 

 When an indentation is once made in the pounamu the work is 

 easy. As each flint becomes blunted it is replaced by another. "||- 

 From New Caledonia I have had a description of a stick drill on 

 a large scale, used for making the nephrite ceremonial axes ; to 

 this a stone is slung, performing when set spinning, the office of a 

 fly-wheel. The shaft drill survived till lately on Erromanga, New 

 Hebrides, whence the Rev. H . A. Robertson procured models, now 

 in the Australian Museum. Fire-sticks and the long spines of 

 Echini supplied the Fijian's boring apparatus. 



The structure and use of the pump drill is thus described by Dr. 

 Turner : "Take a piece of wood, eighteen inches long, twice the 

 thickness of a cedar pencil. Fasten with a strong thread a fine 

 pointed nail, or a sail needle, to the end of this sort of spindle. 

 Get a thick piece of wood, about the size of what is called in 

 England a ' hot cross bun,' and in Scotland a ' cookie,' bore a hole 

 in the centre of it, run the spindle through it, and wedge it fast 

 about the middle of the spindle. At the top of the spindle fasten 



* Brigham loc. cit., pt iii., p. 3,1. 



t Morse Japanese Homes, 1888, p. 40. 



j Voy. Uranie et Physicienne, 1829, pi. 46. 



Cook First Voyage, ii., 1773, p. 219; Last Voyage, i., 1785, pp. 160 

 and 395. 



|| Chapman Trans. N. Z. Inst., xxiv., 1891 (1892) p. 499. Another 

 type is figured, loc. cit., pi. xxviii. 



