146 Proceedings of tlie Asiatic Society. [Sept. 



he never detected any forms resembling those of the stone implements. 

 At the same time he must admit that his observation was not then 

 quickened by expectation. If, however, his supposition, that these 

 forms were absent in the gravels of which he had spoken accorded 

 with the fact, it would go some extent to show that they were not 

 probably due to fracture brought about by natural causes. He would 

 add that too much weight ought not to be given to the objection 

 founded on the rudeness and incompleteness of the great bulk of the 

 specimens, because if they really were the handy work of man, most 

 if not all of those found in the gravels, from which they are manufac- 

 tured, would be failures. All that were finished, and brought to 

 a condition fitted for use, would of course be taken away from their 

 places, and, if discovered at all, would be found isolated or on the 

 sites of dwellings." 



Mr. Dall suggested that the instruments might have been used for 

 religious purposes, probably as sacrificial knives. 



Mr. Ball said : — 



" One of the chief difficulties with most of these implements is to 

 assign a probable use for them. If it be true that the art of manu- 

 facturing some of the more complicated forms is lost, it seems no less 

 to be the case that the art of putting them to the use for which they 

 were intended has not been handed down. As suggesting a probable 

 use for some of the flakes exhibited by Mr. Blanford and "Dr. Anderson, 

 I would remind the meeting that, when the first Europeans landed in 

 Mexico, they found that the inhabitants used to shave themselves with 

 flakes of obsidian : two such razors, it is said, were blunted by the 

 operation. It is a well known custom amongst the Andamanese to 

 shave the head with pieces of broken glass, as well as to use lancets of the 

 same material ; now, bearing in mind the objection which savage races 

 always have to adopting new customs, we cannot suppose that the 

 introduction of this one was posterior to that of glass. And we are 

 thus led to speculate as to what the material can have been which 

 glass has superseded. The flakes collected by Col. Haughton and exhi- 

 bited by Dr. Anderson this evening, seem to prove that a source of 

 flint or agate must be accessible to the Andamanese, though, what its 

 nature may be, the scanty knowledge at present possessed of the geology 

 of the Andamans, prevents our determining. Future investigation may 

 shew, that with the Andamanese, as old nails and scraps of iron have 



