Ball — On Ancient Stone Implements of India. 397 



been adopted as a more suitable material by the partially-tamed 

 tribes. 



Sumatra. 



A specimen of a polisbed celt from Sumatra, and now in the 

 Christy Museum, London, is considered by Mr. Theobald to be of very 

 similar character to one from Burmah. I have not had an opportunity 

 as yet of ascertaining what has been written on the subject of Sumatra 

 implements.* 



Java. 



It appears that a considerable series of chipped implements and 

 polished celts have been obtained in Java. These have, I believe, 

 been reported on by a Commission appointed for the purpose, by the 

 French Academy of Sciences, which, in all probability, contains much 

 interesting information. 



Methods Employed en the Manufacture of the Implements. 



"What I have said on a previous page, in reference to the evidence 

 of design afforded by the chipped quartzite implements, sufficiently in- 

 dicates how they were in all probability trimmed into shape ; but with 

 the agate and chert flakes it is by no means so easy to account for the 

 process employed. The beautiful symmetry of the cores, especially 

 those from Sind, indicate an amount of careful and skilled manipu- 

 lation which the quartzite chippers rarely if ever possessed. In the 

 Andamans I heard that heat was an agent employed in facilitating frac- 

 ture, but I could get no full account of the whole process. I doubt if 

 the Andamanese, too, ever produced cores like those from Sind. 



Pressure has been rather vaguely suggested as the means by which 

 these flakes were made ; but no one, so far as I know, has by any ap- 

 plication of it produced satisfactory results. 



The polished celts, particularly those of hard materials, in all pro- 

 bability represent a great amount of work. Some of them, particu- 

 larly those of the shouldered type, may have been sawn into shape- 

 It is well known that fibres and thin laths used in conjunction with 

 sand have been used successfully to cut through iron fetters. A simi- 

 lar process, with suitable varieties of sand, may have been employed by 

 the ancient manufacturers of celts. 



Uses to which the Stone Implements weee put. 



Although it has been a common practice with many writers to 

 speak of these chipped stone implements as axes, hatchets, &c, I do 

 not think that any one can really be prepared to maintain that they 

 could ever have been employed as such in the manner in which 

 modern axes or hatchets are used. 



More unsuitable tools for actually cutting wood can hardly bo con- 



* Vide Xote on page 412. 



