l62 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



dromedaries, mingling with the camels and buffalo teams 

 that throng the narrow streets. 



The Georgian signalled to his strikers, and in swift 

 succession his hammer and their two sledges rang on the 

 little mass of iron till one side of it was beaten to a plate, 

 the other being shaped at a second heat for the socket. 

 The edges were trimmed, and the whole dressed with a 

 rough file, till it took the form here show^n (fig. 2). A 

 second shovel I left to be finished, and called for next 

 day, when I paid for the pair. I think the whole sum 

 charged was a rouble (say half a dollar, or two shiUings 

 EngHsh). 



I noticed that the anvil in this smithy, as in others we 

 visited, was beaked, like those we are accustomed to, and 

 that the swages and other tools were of the familiar types. 

 The beaked anvil is shewn on a Roman painting in 

 Pompeii, so that the shape was the same in Italy 1,800 

 years ago as that we are using to-day. 



I went to another smith to get a pick and gad made 

 such as miners use in the Caucasus. (See figs. 5 and 7). 



In masons' tools I had noticed the same forms as those 

 with which we are familiar in the west : the lozenge- 

 shaped building trowel ; the oblong square plastering float 

 with the handle attached to the plate. A similar form, 

 made of wood, has been found in Egypt, used by the 

 earliest Pyramid-builders. 



Stone-cutters' tools were also identical with ours. 

 Noticing that these seemed rather a specialty in one of 

 the forges in the Persian quarter, I went in and asked the 

 smith if he could make me a double-pointed pick, some- 

 what smaller than those generally used, but of the usual 

 shape. This man I found was a Greek, named Nikola, 

 an immigrant, but as he had, of course, to conform to the 

 usual patterns of tools used in the Caucasus, his nationality 

 made no difference for my purpose. He could not speak 

 Russian, however, and I had to hold converse with him 



