ORIGIN OF THE PLOW AND WHEEL-CARRIAGE. 455 



the old block-wheel cart can only be done by gradually slewing round 

 in a wide circuit. 



As early as history goes back, the carriage-builder had already 

 begun to make spoked wheels with metal tires, whose well-made nave 

 turned smoothly on the axle. It is needless here to extract from 

 Wilkinson and Layard particulars of the beautifully made Egyptian 

 and Assyrian chariots, nor to go into details of classic, mediaeval, and 

 modern carriage-building. As bearing on the origin of the art, it must 

 be noticed that the point whei'e the developments of the plow and car- 



FiG. 12. 



riage join is in the way of attaching the drawing oxen or horses, which 

 was much alike in both. The pole and yoke was no doubt the original 

 mode of draught, not only for the plow and the heavy ox-cart, where 

 it may be often seen still, but also for the chariot and light car (see 

 Schlieben, " Die Pferde des Alterthums," p. 154). The war-chariot, 

 with its yoked steeds, has a remarkable similarity w^herever we meet 

 with it in the ancient world, which seems to point to its invention by 

 some one particular nation, though which has not yet been made out, 

 whence it spread to distant countries. How such inventions found 

 their way is well shown in a point of detail, which incidentally shows 

 how far the ancient Britons wei*e from the uncivilized state popularly 

 attributed to them, namely, their use (Mela iii, 6) of scythe-chariots, 

 such as were used in Oriental armies, like that of Darius (Diod. Sic. 

 xvii, 53), or of Antiochus Eupator, when he came into Judea with 

 horsemen and elephants and three hundred scythe-chariots (2 Maccab. 

 xiii, 2). War-chariots were from the first drawn by the pole. The 

 Homeric chariots appear to have been without traces, as where, in the 

 Iliad (vi, 40), Adrastus's scared horses snap the pole amid the tangled 

 tamarisk, and set off straight for the city, evidently having nothing 

 but the pole to hold them. In ancient Egypt, one inner trace w^as 

 used, but the stress was on the pole. Eventually, in looking at the 

 harness of various nations, we come to the present plan of draught by 

 collar and traces. The change is interesting, as seeming to prove that 

 the earliest use of draught-cattle is that still seen in the yoke of oxen. 

 It has been argued by Pictet (" Origines Indo-Europeennes," part ii, p. 



