Page:Pounamu, notes on New Zealand greenstone (IA pounamunotesonne00robl).djvu/23



OCKS have been discovered in various localities in New Zealand whose surfaces are scored with deep grooves. There the men of old were wont to perform the grinding and rubbing processes whereby greenstone implements were smoothed and made symmetrical. It is astonishing how well formed and true in outline are these stone implements of the Maori. The labour involved in their manufacture was enormous. Weapons, tools and ornaments formed from rough pieces of greenstone by appliances of the most primitive character, were brought to a very high degree of finish by grinding them by hand with pieces of rough sandstone, the work being expedited by the use of sand-grit and water. The stone was sawn by rubbing the edge of one slab with another, water being allowed to drip continuously but slowly from a calabash hung above the stone, a constant supply of the finest quartz sand being meanwhile dropped into the groove by the workman.

The only mechanical appliance of which we have any knowledge, that can safely be described as the invention of these workers of stone, is the tuwiri, an implement used for boring holes. Of this ingenious drill, with which the Maori were very expert, a