The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitantsMarsden, William
History
The history of Sumatra : $b Containing an account of the government, laws, customs and manners of the native inhabitants
Marsden, William
Natural history -- Indonesia -- Sumatra; Sumatra (Indonesia)
But little skill is shown amongst the country people in forging iron.
They make nails however, though not much used by them in building, wooden
pins being generally substituted; also various kinds of tools, as the
prang or bill, the banchi, rembe, billiong, and papatil, which are
different species of adzes, the kapak or axe, and the pungkur or hoe.
Their fire is made with charcoal; the fossil coal which the country
produces being rarely, if ever, employed, except by the Europeans; and
not by them of late years, on the complaint of its burning away too
quickly: yet the report made of it in 1719 was that it gave a surer heat
than the coal from England. The bed of it (described rather as a large
rock above ground) lies four days' journey up Bencoolen River, from
whence quantities are washed down by the floods. The quality of coal is
rarely good near the surface. Their bellows are thus constructed: two
bamboos, of about four inches diameter and five feet in length, stand
perpendicularly near the fire, open at the upper end and stopped below.
About an inch or two from the bottom a small joint of bamboo is inserted
into each, which serve as nozzles, pointing to, and meeting at, the fire.
To produce a stream of air bunches of feathers or other soft substance,
being fastened to long handles, are worked up and down in the upright
tubes, like the piston of a pump. These, when pushed downwards, force the
air through the small horizontal tubes, and, by raising and sinking each
alternately, a continual current or blast is kept up; for which purpose a
boy is usually placed on a high seat or stand. I cannot retrain from
remarking that the description of the bellows used in Madagascar, as
given by Sonnerat, Volume 2 page 60, so entirely corresponds with this
that the one might almost pass for a copy of the other.
CARPENTER'S WORK.
The progress they have made in carpenter's work has been already pointed
out, where there buildings were described.
TOOLS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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