Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 11.djvu/148

118 whom they came were ancestors of the Javanese, or that the population of Java was derived from those countries.

So far as I can draw any inference from the Javanese wedges and chisels, which I have inspected (for of other instruments and weapons of stone, such as arrow, or spearheads, there is here no question), I am inclined to arrange them, according to their forms, in four classes, three of which occur, with slight modifications, in similar productions from Europe, Asia, and America, whilst the fourth seems peculiar to Java, with the islands, perhaps, of the Indian Archipelago.

1. In the first class I place those wedges, whose broad surfaces are worked convex, becoming thinner towards the sides without presenting lateral planes, even of the smallest size. Underneath they are ground more or less sharply from one broad surface to the other. A section of the upper part is considerably smaller than that of the lower. It often even tapers in some degree to a point. In its principal features the whole has preserved the form of an oblong flattened pebble, having undergone a natural preparatory process of friction by water, to which art has indeed had little to add in order to adapt the pebble to its intended design as an implement or weapon. (See Diagram . a, Front view. b, Vertical section. c. Horizontal section.)

2. The second class comprehends wedges nearly flat on