398 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 



ceived of, though as wedges for splitting wood, many, "both of the 

 chipped and polished kinds would be fairly efficient instruments. 

 Some may possibly have been used for scooping out canoes and wooden 

 Tessels, the operation being facilitated by a preliminary charring by 

 fire. It is known that some have been used in Assam and adjoining 

 -countries on the Xorth-east frontier as hoes in rude agriculture, and 

 that for this purpose iron has, in certain remote tracts, only of late 

 become available. 



Although certain forms of the chipped quartzites may have been 

 carried in cleft sticks as battle-axes or weapons of offence or defence 

 against wild animals, I believe that the bulk of them were used for 

 grubbing wild roots out of the ground. Some years ago I paid a good 

 deal of attention to the subject of the jungle products, which afford a 

 means of support to many of the aboriginal races. Besides fruits, 

 leaves, and stems, I ascertained that the roots, particularly of several 

 species of Dioseorea, &c, furnished a substantial food for several months 

 of every year. At the present day people belonging to such tribes 

 may often be seen laboriously digging up these roots, either with a 

 simply pointed stick, or a stick provided with an iron spike. I have 

 a very vivid recollection of the appearance presented by a woman 

 whom I saw thus engaged during the present year. Her prognathous 

 countenance was of the lowest type I have ever seen ; to what race or 

 tribe she belonged I did not ascertain, but as I saw her with hunger 

 in her eyes and an infant strapped on her back, while she crouched 

 over the precious root which she was digging out, I could not but 

 regard her as being in all probability a lineal descendant of the manu- 

 facturers and users of stone implements such as some of those which I 

 exhibit here to-night. 



There is one class of stone implements unsuited to any of the above- 

 mentioned purposes, but wnich, being provided with sharp edges, it 

 seems very probable were used as skin scrapers. In connexion with 

 this I may mention, that on one occasion in the Satpura Hills, in the 

 ■Central Provinces, having shot a bear, I gave the carcase, with some 

 knives, to the people who had brought it to camp, in order that 

 they might take off the skin. These people belonged to a tribe 

 who always carry a very small well-sharpened iron axe of a form I 

 have not seen elsewhere. After working for a short time with the 

 knives, they discarded them for the axes, which they removed from 

 their wooden handles, and then placing their thumbs in the holes, 

 grasped them firmly with their fingers and continued the flaying with 

 astonishing rapidity. In a similar way I believe that the scrapers of 

 stone may have been used for the preparation of skins which, when 

 rudely dressed, afforded the only clothing of these early inhabitants. 

 The various forms of traps and snares which are now commonly met 

 with in the jungles may be survivals of the ancient methods which 

 were employed to capture the wild animals. 



Opinions differ much as to the probable uses of the ring stones, of 

 which examples of various sizes have been obtained in Hadras, Jabal- 



