Inventors at Work, with Chapters on Discovery

by George Iles

Weapons and Tools.

As with food so with other resources almost as vital. Long ago the savage learned that hickory makes good bows and arrows, that as a club it forms a stout and lasting weapon. He discovered, too, that in these qualities soft woods are inferior and the sumach altogether wanting. Thus, too, with the whole round of stones from which as a warrior or a craftsman he fashioned knives, chisels, arrowheads, axes; it was important that only tough and durable kinds should be employed. No lump of dry clay ever yet served as a hammer or an adze; happy were the tribes, such as those of ancient Britain, who had at hand goodly beds of flint from which a few well directed blows could furnish forth a whole armory of tools and weapons.