1875.] Ball — On Stone Implements from Qliota-Nagpur. 119 



earth about 3 feet or so from the surface. The Perdcm's story is, that 

 during the night preceding the finding of the implement, there had been 

 a violent storm with thunder and much lightning, some of which flashed 

 unpleasantly close to the village. That on going into his sugarcane field 

 next morning he found the cane within a radius of 10 feet or so all burnt, 

 singed and scorched up in a most surprising manner. He judged that the 

 destruction had been caused by lightning, as no doubt it had. That his 

 curiosity being excited by the crater-like appearance of the soil at the very 

 centre of the circle of destroyed sugarcane he dug down with a view to 

 ascertaining what might be there, and found the adze in a perfectly vertical 

 position edge downwards. It was then in the same condition with broken 

 edge as it is now. 



The smaller adze has no particular history attached to it. It was 

 obtained from a villager who could only say that his father — now dead — 

 had found it somewhere in the jungle. 



With regard to the wedge-shaped stone, Mr. Ritchie, on the authority 

 of the Head Constable of Kokepara, states that " it was found by a man of 

 Guru Banda (west side of Subanrika) embedded in the very centre of the 

 lower part of the trunk of a middling sized Mhowa tree (Bassia latifolid) 

 which had evidently been struck by lightning and split in twain from top 

 to the very lowest extremity of the trunk." 



The popular notion according to Mr. Ritchie is that all these stones 

 are thunderbolts. The same opinion is held by the people in Barma re- 

 garding the very similar implements found there. 



The larger shouldered specimen (PL II, fig. 1) is formed of dark green, 

 excessively dense and hard quartzite with a wavy structure and some inclu- 

 ded pebble-like masses of different composition. How far it may consist of 

 pure quartz I cannot say as I have not chipped it and hardly like to do so. 

 The other shouldered adze (fig. 2) is made of a black igneous rock, 

 which shews a minute crystalline structure and can be readily scratched 

 with a knife. 



As regards the wedge-shaped stone (fig. 3) it has most mj T steriously 

 disappeared from my possession and I only retain a sketch of it ; but so far 

 as I remember, it appeared to be made of the same material as the larger 

 adze. 



In reference to the origin of these implements, their mineral composi- 

 tion is not, I believe, inconsistent with the view that they may have been 

 manufactured originally in the part of the country where they were found. 

 The source of the material from which the flakes I formerly exhibited to the 

 Society were manufactured occurs within the district of Singhbhum. It is 

 a bed of dark chert-like quartzite and from it the material of the large adze 

 might very possibly have been obtained. Again the very numerous dykes 



