1879. ] J. Cockburn—WNotes on Stone Implements. 139 
natives to recognise the veriest fragment of a celt, pieces in fact which 
have been declared by educated Englishmen to be fragments of pebbles. 
The people, however, seem to regard a smooth surface on some part of the 
implement as an indispensable test of the authenticity of a celt, and failed 
to recognise flint knives. This would account for the singular absence of 
palzolithic weapons among these remainsin Banda. A seeming exception to 
this rule is the heart-shaped type of celt, of which No. 4 is a fragment, 
but these, though chipped, invariably exhibit the best cutting-edge, when 
perfect, of any I have yet seen, and this is also Mr. Theobald’s experience, see 
fig. 4, Pl. II, of his paper. The same remarks apply to the elongated chipped 
fragment, No. 18, of my list, (Plate XVI, fig. H) which is polished on the 
bevelled surfaces forming the edge, andis yet sharp. The stone hammer was 
probably retained by its finder for the same reason. This hypothesis of 
mine, is, however, open to objection, based as it is on the absence of paleoli- 
thie implements in a tract which yet remains to be carefully explored. 
The majority of my specimens were picked up under Pipal trees, 
sometimes on the road side, but more usually growing on the high bunds 
of the tanks so common in Banda; a number were removed by me from 
off a huge Phallus, where they lay in the groove of the female emblem. 
Specimen No. 2, I found on a stone slab in a ruined temple ; Nos. 5 and 7, I 
found ona mud altar with the hammer described further on. Others are 
often placed in the fissures and clefts of trees. It is curious that pre- 
cisely the same idea exists in this part of India on this last point as on 
the continent of Europe, where the peasantry place celts, called “thun- 
derstones’”’ (as I have often heard them called in Banda), in the clefts of 
growing trees. I have twice dug out celts with my hunting knife, which 
were so grown over by Pipal trees; on one of these occasions, only the 
conical tip was visible! With regard to the finding of these celts by 
natives, most of them have, I believe, been found in excavations a few feet 
deep ; some have doubtless been turned up by the plough ; a large proportion 
again have been found in watercourses or streams, into which they had been 
washed along with the soil ; others have been found on the eroded surface of 
fields. In one instance alone did a celt picked up by me show unquestion- 
able traces of having been lately deposited under the tree where I found it. 
This specimen, which I think I gave to Mr. G. H. M. Ricketts, c. s., c. B., 
had red sand adhering to it in compact lumps, so hard as to justify the 
belief that it was part of the original matrix in which the celt was found. 
The accompanying table gives details of the types found in Banda, 
by myself, and my brother William Bruce Cockburn, who first drew my 
attention to them, has himself collected a large series, and has aided me 
very materially in searching for them personally. 
