AXES AND HATCHETS, ANCIENT AND MODERN. 189 



size of the timber and the character of the fibre. A hatchet is handled 

 with the centre of gravity nearer the cutting-edge than the line of the 

 handle ; an axe with the centre of gravity in the line of handle pro- 

 duced. Of this, however, more hereafter. 



The mode of attaching a handle to an axe in the bronze age is 

 very instructive to us. The illustrations are suggestive enough, and 

 need only a passing remark. It will be observed that for the pur- 

 pose of handling, some of these axes are socketed, others wedge- 

 pointed. The socketed ones were evidently handled as we handle 

 socketed chisels. There is, however, one peculiarity, and that worthy 

 of consideration. These bronze hatchets have in many instances a 

 semicircular, ring-like projection [see Figs. 4 and 5), the object of 

 which was for a long time a puzzle, but the suggested mode of 

 handling the implements, if correct as seen in the diagram, points 

 to a knowledge of directions of tension and of pressure, which engi- 

 neers at the present day cannot but admire. If any one has ever 

 struck a common hatchet to any great depth into timber, and care- 

 lessly endeavored to loosen it by raising the extremity of the handle, 

 he may have found the handle separate from the metal near the junc- 

 tion of the two. Now the withe, or lashing, shown in this bronze in- 

 strument, has been put, as we should put it at the present day, in 

 order to strengthen the connection at this, the weakest part. 



Fig. 3. 



Fig. 4. 



Figs. 3, 4, 5, are examples of the modes of handling these ancient 



bronze hatchets. Fig. 3 is the most primitive. 



Fig. 



4 and Fig. 5 



illustrate the mode adopted to strengthen by tension-cords the weak- 

 est part of the handle. A remnant of this tension-cord is probably 



