9781787377363 by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous [Anonymous]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-01-29T00:00:00+00:00

We had the chipping operation repeated on many subsequent occasions, and by various individuals, and found that all adopted the same method; the essential feature of which was that the fashioning of the glass was effected entirely by pressure, and that no striking implement was used. I induced one of the men to try an old flat file, instead of his own chipping instrument, but he soon discarded it; however he found a blunt-edged ship's knife very convenient for giving the finishing touches to the point of the spear-head. With the experience gained from the Fuegians, I soon learnt to turn out very fair imitations of their work; and after practising on various kinds of glass, I found that the easiest to work with was black bottle-glass, and the most difficult plate-glass. Green pickle bottle-glass is about a mean between the two, and as it is tolerably thick the natives prefer it for their spear-heads; but for the arrow-heads they use the black glass. Crown-glass was easy to work, but flaked off in rather short pieces. I also experimented with some black flint, which happened to be on board, and found it could be worked in precisely the same way as the glass, but was certainly more difficult to fashion into shape. Then I tried different kinds of working tools, and soon found, to my surprise, that hard steel was the worst of all, for it scratched and slipped off the edge of the glass without chipping it at all; whereas soft iron, which was much preferable, could be manipulated so that it would bite only the extreme edge of the glass, and by this means very thin and broad flakes could be detached. Even an old bone harpoon-head answered very well indeed, but of course was worn away more rapidly than the soft iron.

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