employment of a hollow stick, such as a piece of elder, for the boring tool. My experience confirms this; but I found that the coarse sand was liable to clog and accumulate in the hollow part of the stick, and thus grind away the top of the core. If I had used finer sand this probably would not have been the case.
Mr. Rose[1] has suggested the use of a hollow bone; but, as already observed, I found bone less effective than wood, in consequence of its not being so good a medium for carrying the sand.
Mr. Sehested,[2] however, who carried out a series of interesting experiments in grinding, sawing, and boring stone implements, found dry sand better than wet, and a bone of lamb better than either elder or cow's-horn for boring.
Most of the holes drilled in the stone instruments and pipes of North America appear to have been produced by hollow drills, which Professor Rau[3] suggests may have been formed of a hard and tough cane, the Arundinaria macrosperma, which grows abundantly in the southern parts of the United States. He finds reason for supposing that the Indian workmen were acquainted with the ordinary form of drill driven by a pulley and bow. The tubes of steatite, one foot in length, found in some of the minor mounds of the Ohio Valley,[4] must probably have been bored with metal.
Dr. Keller, after making some experiments with a hollow bone and quartz-sand, tried a portion of ox-horn, which he found surprisingly more effective, the sand becoming embedded in the horn and acting like a file. He comments on the absence of any bronze tubes that could have been used for boring in this manner, and on the impossibility of making flint tools for the purpose. The perishable nature of ox-horn accounts for its absence in the Lake settlements.[5] On the whole this suggestion appears to me the most reasonable. Experiments have also been made in boring with stag's-horn.[6]
M. Troyon[7] considered that these holes were not bored by means of a hollow cylinder, inasmuch as this would not produce so conical an opening, and he thought that the axe was made to revolve in some sort of lathe, while the boring was effected by
- ↑ Journal of the Anthrop. Soc., vol. vi. p. xlii.
- ↑ "Archæol. Undersögelser," 1884.
- ↑ "Smithson. Report," 1868, p. 399. "Drilling in Stone without Metal."
- ↑ Schoolcraft, "Indian Tribes," vol. i. p. 93.
- ↑ Anzeiger f. Schweiz. Alt., 1870, p. 143.
- ↑ Mitth. d. Anth. Ges. in Wien, vol. vii. (1878), p. 96.
- ↑ "Habitations Lacustres," p. 66. Rev. Arch., 1860, vol. i. p. 39.
