Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 October 1898 — They Use Sharks' Teeth. [ARTICLE]

They Use Sharks' Teeth.

The natives of some of the Pacific islands, being provided with neither metals nor any stone harder than the coral rocks of which the atolls they inhabit are composed, would seem badly off indeed for material of which to make tools or weapons were It not that their very necessity has bred an Invention no less Ingenious than curious and effective. This Is nothing less-than the use of sharks’ teeth to give a cutting edge to their wooden knives and swords. The mouth of the shark contains three hundred teeth, arranged in rows, all not only pointed and keenedged, but finely and regularly serrated, so that the cutting power is greatly Increased. Indeed, so great a faculty have these teeth for wounding that the Implements and weapons upon which they are used have to be handled by their owners with no little care.