The substance of the thunder-stone is the
greenstone-trap everywhere abundant, and taking with age a creamy patina
like the basalt of the Hauran. I heard, however, that at Abusi, beyond
Anamabo (Bird-rock), and other places further east worked stones of a
lightish slaty hue are common. About New Town and Assini these implements
become very plentiful. Mr. S. Cheetham informs me that the thinner
hatchets, somewhat finger-shaped, are copied in iron by the peoples of the
Benin River. These expert smiths buy poor European metal and, like other
West Africans, turn out a first-rate tool.
Axim seems to have been a great centre of stone-manufacture. Mr. Carr
showed us a dozen huge boulders of greenstone, chiefly at the eastern
angle of the wart that bears, in dangerous proximity to his stores, his
powder-magazine. The upper surfaces are scored and striped with
leaf-shaped grooves, formed like old Greek swords; some of them are three
feet long by three inches wide and three deep. I made a sketch of the
place; Cameron photographed it, and on return carried off a huge slice of
the block, which is now in the British Museum. We afterwards found these
striated stones on the sea-ward face of St.
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