1870.] Archeology. 515 



This form is very rare. 2. A hatchet with flat sides converging 

 towards the base which is square, and with a segmental edge, much 

 like the common German form. This type is common. 3. A long 

 adze with square, slightly converging sides, and a bevelled seg- 

 mental edge, in character much resembling some of the implements 

 discovered in Java, Borneo, and Sumatra, and also a New Zealand 

 form. 4. Implements of the same character, so far as the edge and 

 sides are concerned, but having the butt end reduced in width so as 

 to produce a square shoulder on each side of the blade. In some 

 this reduction in width extends more than half the length of the 

 blade, so as to produce a T-shaped form. These shorter speci- 

 mens are the most common. This form appears to be peculiar to 

 Burmah. 



Mr. John Evans, F.E.S., F.S.A., offers some valuable critical 

 notes upon Mr. Theobald's discovery, in ' Nature.'* He says : — 



" In some cases the lashings used to fasten them to their hafts 

 have left traces on the stone. The implements are usually picked 

 up on the surface of the hills, and in the fields, or clearings made 

 for cultivation, and not in the plains. 



" Mr. Theobald seems inclined to doubt whether, without the 

 use of iron also, those who made these implements could have 

 effected clearances in the gigantic forests of Pegu ; but it may be 

 urged against this view that by calling in the aid of fire the effi- 

 ciency of such tools is almost as great as if they had been formed 

 of metal, and it is difficult to conceive a people in possession either 

 of bronze or iron bestowing the necessary time and trouble on the 

 fashioning of stone tools when those of metal were at their com- 

 mand, which, whether fire were employed in the clearance or no, 

 were for general purposes so much more effective. If the makers of 

 those stone tools had been in possession of other means for clearing 

 the hill-sides, then Mr. Theobald would be inclined to regard the 

 stone relics as agricultural implements used in hand agriculture, at 

 the end of sticks, as a kind of spade, to form the shallow holes for 

 the cultivation of ' hill rice.' If not explained in this manner, he 

 argues, we must regard them as weapons of the chase and war, 

 though this use is, he thinks, negatived by their thoroughly ineffi- 

 cient character for such purposes. 



" To this may be objected, first, that the material of which they 

 are usually formed is basalt, a stone constantly used as a material 

 for cutting-tools ; secondly, that the presence of the square shoulders, 

 so like those on the horn sockets for hatchets of the Swiss Lake- 

 dwellers, seems to testify to the tools having been used as adzes or 

 axes, or possibly chisels ; and thirdly, that if they had been required 

 merely for hoeing or digging, the trouble of grinding and polishing 

 might and would have been saved." 



* Vol. ii., No. 32, p. 104. 



