1879.] J. Cockburn—Wotes on Stone Implements. 133 
XVI.—Wotes on Stone Implements from the Khasi Hills, and the Banda 
and Vellore Districts—By Joun Cocxsurn, Late Ourator of the 
Allahébad Museum, Officiating Assistant Osteologist, Indian Museum, 
Calcutta. 
(Received Ist July ; read 6th August, 1879.) 
(With Plates XIV, XV, XVI.) 
Stone Implements from the Khasi Hills. 
Stone implements have from time to time been found in the Province 
of Assam, but the specimen figured in Plate XIV (figures A, A’), is un- 
usually interesting, as being the first stone implement found im situ on the 
Khasi Hills. The only previous record of a stone implement from the 
Khasi Hills I can find, is by Col. Godwin-Austen, in P. A. 8. B. for 1875, 
p- 158.* This specimen was picked up on the surface of the road, on the 
bridge near Col. McCulloch’s house at Shillong, and no one who knows the 
locality can doubt that it had been dropped accidentally, probably from the 
pouch of some Khasia, a people who venerate celts as relics. Specimen B, 
(Plate XIV, figs. B, B*) which I purchased from a Khasia, had a small portion 
scraped off. This, I was told, had been administered to a sick child in a 
draught of water. The first specimen (A), which measures roughly 3’ 50” in 
length, by 1’ 65” in width, is made of a tolerably hard argillaceous slate. 
It was dug up at Shillong in December, 1877, on the site of the house at 
present occupied by Brigadier-General Nation, in the presence of Col. A. 
Tulloch, then in command of the 42nd N. I., and Lieut. H. Stevens, Adjutant 
of the Regiment. ‘These officers were superintending a working party of 
the men of their Regiment who were levelling the site, when one of the men, 
a Ghurka, came up to them with the celt in his hand, all incrusted asit was 
with clay, and said it had just tumbled out of a clod he had broken up. On 
the specimen being shown to me, I at once pronounced it to be a genuine celt, 
in spite of the soft material of which it was made. I visited the place the 
same day in company with these gentlemen, and was shown the spot where 
it was found. This was nearly four feet below the surface in clay. This 
clay overlies a peculiar sub-gneissose sandstone, and from sections I had an 
opportunity of observing on an adjoining site about 300 yards north-east of 
- the General’s house and elsewhere close by, it averages from five to seven 
feet in thickness. 
I shortly after got specimen (B) from a highly intelligent Khasia in my 
employ ; he said he had found it near Nongpo on the Shillong and Gau- 
hati road. There can be no doubt as to the authenticity of this speci- 
men, which is made of the same material (slate) as specimen (A,) and has 
* For two other instances of stone implements in Assam, see P. A. S. B., 1872, 
p. 136. 
