indeed, if any grinding process was used, it is a question whether some softer substance, such as wood, in which the sand or abrasive material could become imbedded, would not be more effective than flint. By way of experiment I bored a hole through the Swiss hatchet of steatite before mentioned, and I found that in that case a flint flake could be used as a sort of drill; but that for grinding, a stick of elder was superior to both flint and bone, inasmuch as it formed a better bed for the sand.
Professor Rau, of New York, has made some interesting experiments in boring stone by means of a drilling-stock and sand, which are described in the "Annual Report of the Smithsonian Institute for 1868."[1] He operated on a piece of hard diorite an inch and three-eighths in thickness, and employed as a drilling agent a wooden wand of ash, or at times, of pine, in conjunction with sharp quartz sand. Attached to the wand was a heavy disc, to act as a fly-wheel, and an alternating rotatory motion was obtained by means of a bow and cord attached at its centre to the apex of the drilling-stock, and giving motion to it after the manner of a "pump-drill," such as is used by the Dacotahs[2] and Iroquois[3] for producing fire by friction, or what is sometimes called the Chinese drill. So slow was the process, that two hours of constant drilling added, on an average, not more than the thickness of an ordinary lead-pencil line to the depth of the hole.
The use of a drill of some form or other, to which rotatory motion in alternate directions was communicated by means of a cord, is of great antiquity. We find it practised with the ordinary bow by the ancient Egyptians;[4] and Ulysses is described by Homer[5] as drilling out the eye of the Cyclops by means of a stake with a thong of leather wound round it, and pulled alternately at each end, "like a shipwright boring timber." The "fire-drill," for producing fire by friction, which is precisely analogous to the ordinary drill, is, or was, in use in most parts of the world. Among the Aleutian Islanders the thong-drill, and among the New Zealanders a modification of it, is used for boring holes in stone. Those who wish to see more on the subject must consult Tylor's "Early History of Mankind"[6] and a "Study of the Primitive Methods of Drilling,"[7] by Mr. J. D. McGuire.
- ↑ P. 392. Archiv für Anthrop., vol. iii. p. 187.
- ↑ Schoolcraft, "Ind. Tribes," vol. iii. pp. 228, 466.
- ↑ Tylor, "Early Hist. of Mankind," p. 248.
- ↑ Wilkinson, "Anc. Egyptians," vol. ii. pp. 180, 181; vol. iii. pp. 144, 172.
- ↑ Odyss., ix. 384.
- ↑ 2nd ed., pp. 341 et seqq.; see also "Flint Chips," p. 96.
- ↑ Rep. U. S. Nat. Mus. for 1894, p. 623.
