258 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 



two strings, each nine inches long, to the end of these strings 

 attach the ends of a common cedar pencil, forming a triangle 

 with a wooden base and side strings. Stand up the machine with 

 your left hand, place the iron point where you wish to bore a hole, 

 and steady the spindle with your left hand. Take hold of the 

 pencil handle of the upper triangle, twirl round the spindle with 

 your left hand, which will coil on the strings at the top to the 

 spindle, pull down the pencil handle quickly, and then the machine 

 will spin round. Work the handle in this way up and down, like 

 a pump, the cord will alternately run off and on to the spindle, 

 and the machine will continue to whirl round, first one way and 

 then the other, until the pearl shell or whatever it may be, is 

 perforated.''* 



Perhaps the earliest account we have of the pump drill of the 

 Pacific is the excellent engraving and description of one procured 

 from Fakaafu by the American Expedition on the occasion of 

 their discovery of that island. f Turner fully describes this drill 

 and its use in Samoa, J and a Samoan example is figured by Edge- 

 Partington. At Treasury Island, Solomons, Dr. Guppy saw 

 Mule, the chief, using a pump drill for " piercing the holes for the 

 rattan-like thongs in the planks of his canoe."|| Edge-Partington 

 supplies an illustration of a pump drill with a stone point and a 

 turtle fly-wheel from Malayta, Solomons ;11 and Codrington des- 

 cribes certain disks as "drilled with a pump drill, in Florida 

 ' puputa,' in San Christoval 'nono."'** Its existence in British 

 New Guinea is attested by D'Albertis, who figures one from 

 Naiabui ;ff by Stone, who figures and describes another from Port 

 Moresby ;JJ and by Edge-Partington, who figures a third from 

 Kerepunu $$ the two latter are peculiar in the substitution of a 

 bar for a fly-wheel. In 1890, I observed a native in the village 

 of Toulon Island engaged in making beads from Strombus shells 

 with the aid of a pump drill. " The rotatory drill was known to 

 the Hawaiians ; before the advent of iron the point of a Terebra 

 shell served for borer, but in modern times a triangular file was 

 generally used."||!| 



* Turner Samoa, 1884, p. 169. 



t Wilkes loc. tit., v., p. 18, fig. 



J Turner loc. cit., p. 169. 



Edge-Partington loc. cit., i., pi. Ixxvii., fig. 1. 



II Guppy loc. cit., p. 76. 



If Edge-Partington loc. cit., i., pi. cci., fig. 3. 



** Codrington The Melanesians, 1891, p. 325. 



ft D'Albertis loc. cit., pi. facing p. 378, fig. 19. 



$$ Stone A Few Months in New Guinea, 1883, p. 72, fig. 



Edge-Partington loc. cit., ii., pi. 174, fig. 4. 



|| || Brigham loc. cit., pt. ii., p. 44; pt. iii., p. 31. 



