Page:Researches into the Early History of Mankind and the Development of Civilization.djvu/211

Rh probably what they were using in Schouten's time; "long staves with very long sharpe things at the ends thereof, which (as we thought) were finnes of black fishes." Among celts, the Polynesian adze blade, to be seen in almost any museum, is a well-marked type; as is the American double hatchet, and an elaborately-formed American knife. The Pech's knives or Pict's knives, of Shetland, made from a rock with a slaty cleavage, seem peculiar. They appear to be efficient instruments, as an old woman was seen cutting cabbage with one not long since.

As there are a good many special instruments like these in different parts of the world, the idea naturally suggests itself of trying to use them as ethnological evidence, to prove connexion or intercourse between two districts where a similar thing is found. For instance, among the most curious phenomena in the history of stone implements is the occurrence of one of the highest types of the Stone Age, the polished celt of green jade, of all places in the world, in Australia, where the general character of the native stone implements is so extremely low. There is a quarry of this very hard and beautiful stone in Victoria, and the natives on the river Glenelg grind it into double-convex hatchet blades, a process which must require great labour, and these blades they fix with native thread into cleft sticks, and use them as battle-axes. Two of the blades in question are in the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries in Edinburgh, presented by Dr. Mackay, who got them near the place where they were made. They are only inferior to the finest celts of the same material from New Zealand, in wanting the accuracy of outline which the Maori would have given, and the conscientious labour with which he would have ground down the whole surface till every inequality or flaw had disappeared, whereas the Australian has been content with polishing into the hollow places, instead of grinding them out. Were we obliged to infer, from the presence of these high-class celts in Australia, that the natives in one part of the country had themselves developed the making of