Striking Tools.
If we search the records of antiquity as left by races of men that have for countless ages vanished from the face of the earth, we shall find that in some shape or other the Hammer was a tool in constant use, and that in principle, though not in material, there was no difference between the Hammer of the Stone Age and that of a blacksmith of the present day.
The development of the instrument can easily be traced, especially as it is a tool which does not admit of much elaboration.
The original hammer was evidently a simple stone, and answered equally as a tool and a weapon. As, however, man progressed towards civilisation, he found that the stone itself was insufficient for his needs, and that he required much more force. The most obvious mode of doing so was to take a larger stone, but this expedient soon became valueless, inasmuch as a large stone was a cumbrous instrument to handle, and could not be directed with any certainty or delicacy.
The principle of the lever was then applied to the stone, which was affixed to a handle, and thus became elevated into the rank of a comparatively civilised tool. Sometimes the stone had a hole bored through it, into which the handle of the hammer was inserted, as is the case with most of our present hammers and pickaxes. Sometimes the end of the handle was enlarged, and the stone thrust through it, as is now done with the axes of Southern Africa. Sometimes a long, flexible rod was used by way of handle, the centre of it taking two turns round the stone, and the ends being lashed together. Handles thus made may be seen in any blacksmith’s forge of the present day.
The tool thus made was soon developed into various forms for different uses. By lengthening and pointing the head, it became a pick for loosening the earth. By widening and flattening the head, it became a hatchet; and, by performing the same alteration in the pickaxe blade, it became an adze. I possess a singularly ingenious tool from Borneo, in which the head is movable, so as to be used as a hatchet or adze at pleasure.
In Demmin’s “Weapons of War” many such hammers and axes are figured. One of them is very remarkable. It is an ancient war-hammer made of black stone, and is shaped exactly like a pickaxe, except that one end of the head is carved into a semblance of some animal’s head. The handle is passed through an oval hole in the centre, just like our pickaxes of the present day. This remarkable example of the art of the Stone Age was found in Russia. The head was nearly a foot in length.
Nature possesses many examples of this principle, of which I have chosen two, namely, the Woodpecker and the Nuthatch.
The wonderful power of beak possessed by both these birds is familiar to every one, but it is not so generally known that they do not merely peck after the usual fashion among birds, i.e. delivering the stroke with the force derived from the neck alone. These birds have an additional leverage. Grasping the tree firmly with their feet, they not only peck, but swing their whole bodies with each stroke, bringing their weight to bear upon the object. They thus convert themselves into living hammers, the feet acting the part of the human hand, the body of the bird being analogous to the handle of the hammer, and the head playing the same part in both cases.
In England these birds are not known as well as they ought to be, partly because they are both very shy creatures, and partly because the gradual extinction of forests has deprived them, and especially the Woodpecker, of their undisturbed homes. Yet those who are early risers may see both birds in places where their presence is quite unsuspected, except, perhaps, by those who can recognise the signs which they have left behind them.
There is a common saying to the effect that “a carpenter is known by his chips,” and the proverb is equally true of the Nuthatch and the Woodpecker. Nutshells scientifically split asunder, and jammed into the rough bark of a tree-trunk, betray at once the Nuthatch to the eye of a naturalist; while an accumulation of shattered bark, splinters of wood, and similar debris announces, in equally bold type, that a Woodpecker has been at work.
The power of the Woodpecker’s beak may be gathered from Wilson’s well-known account of an Ivory-billed Woodpecker, which he had wounded and was trying to rear. While staying at an hotel, he locked the bird in his room, and, on returning within an hour, found an astonishing state of things.
“He had mounted along the side of the window, nearly as high as the ceiling, a little below which he had begun to break through. The bed was covered with large pieces of plaster, the lath was exposed for at least fifteen inches square, and a hole large enough to admit the fist opened to the weather boards, so that in less than another hour he would certainly have succeeded in making his way through.
“I now tied a string round his leg, and, fastening it to the table, again left him. I wished to preserve his life, and had gone off in search of suitable food for him. As I re-ascended the stairs, I heard him again at work, and on entering had the mortification to perceive that he had almost ruined the mahogany table to which he was fastened, and on which he had wreaked his whole vengeance.”
The beak of the Woodpecker was employed upon its new master quite as forcibly as upon walls and furniture, but Wilson was of too generous a nature to resent his injuries, and lamented sincerely when the bird died.
The reader will probably observe that the Hammer which has been given as an illustration of this principle is the ordinary geologist’s hammer, and that it has been selected because its head is so formed that one end can be employed for the usual tasks of a hammer, while the other end, with its slight curve and sharp point, is, in fact, a sort of pickaxe, and used for the same purposes. Indeed, this instrument is an almost exact reproduction of the stone hammer which has already-been mentioned, the blunt end being represented by the carved head, and the sharp end by the pickaxe point.