452 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



from tlie barbaric hoe to the civilized plow is to be seen as it first took 

 place in the world, Egypt may possibly have been the birthplace of 

 the plow ; but so many forms of rude plows are to be found repre- 

 sented on coins and sculptures of the ancient world, that it is safer to 

 be content with the general idea that they are enlarged and trans- 

 formed hoes, without attempting to fix the date, place, and nation to 

 which this inventive transformation belongs. The following figures 



Fig. 6. 



FiQ. 7. 



are selected from those coj)ied by Ginzrot and Rau. The old Syracu- 

 san form (Fig. 6), as likewise some old Etruscan patterns, is remark- 

 able as being so close to the original hoe pattern as not to have the tail 

 or handle. This want is supjDlied in other rude forms of ancient Italy, 

 of which Fig. 7 shows one. A more angular Roman form is thought 

 to represent the ceremonial plow, with which the wall-line was traced 

 in founding a new city, and Fig. 8 is another aTchaic form ; the pro- 

 jection of the pole behind was for the i:)lowman's foot to press the 

 share down : 



''Depress incipiat jam turn mihi taurus aratro 

 Ingemere, et suico attritus splendescere vomer." 



(Virgil, " Georgics," I, 45.) 



Fig. 9 is Greek, from an early MS. of Hesiod's " Works and Days." 

 Looking at forms of plow as rude as these to be seen at this day in 

 Asia and in backward countries of Europe, one wonders to find that 

 already in classic ages the husbandman had plows of construction far 



Fig. 8. 



Fig. 9. 



more nearly approaching that of our best modern implement-makers. 

 Pliny (xviii, c. 48), after describing the simpler kinds of plow, men- 

 tions that in Rhaetia a plow with the addition of two small wheels had 



