ORIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARRIAGE. 451 



was dragged by hand, making small furrows ; this "furrow-crook" is 

 still used for sowing. Afterward was introduced the " plow-crook," 

 made in two pieces, the share with the handle and the pole for draw- 

 ing. The share was afterward shod with a three-cornered iron bill, 



Fig. 4. Indian Hoe. 



but the implement was long drawn by hand, till eventually it came to 

 be drawn by mares or cows (Hylten-Cavallius, part ii, p. 111). Thus 

 in comparatively modern times a transformation took place in Sweden 

 remarkably resembling that of which we have circumstantial evidence 

 as having happened in ancient Egypt. The Egyptian monuments 

 show a plow, which was practically a great hoe, being dragged by a 

 rope by men (see Denon, "Antiquites de I'Egypte," vol. i, PI, 68), 

 Still more perfect is the plowing scene here copied in Fig, 5 (see 

 Rosellini, " Monumenti dell' Egitto," PL 32, 33 ; Wilkinson, " Ancient 

 Egyptians," chap, vi). Here the man who follows the plow to break 

 up the clods is working with the ordinary Egyptian hoe, remarkable 

 for its curved wooden blade longer than the handle, and prevented 



Fig. 5. 



from coming abroad by the cord attaching the blade to the handle 

 half-way down. This peculiar implement, with its cord to hold it to- 

 gether, reappears on a larger scale in the plow itself, where the straight 

 stick is lengthened to form the pole by which the oxen draw it, and a 

 pair of handles are added by which the plowman keeps down and 

 guides the plow. The valley of the Nile, where the lightness and 

 richness of the alluvial soil are favored by the inundations with their 

 fresh deposit of river-mud, was no doubt one of the regions where the 

 higher agi'iculture earliest arose, and, looking at this sketch of hoeing 

 and plowing, we might be tempted to think that here the transition 



