164 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



about the same angle that our masons employ. (See 



fig. 8). 



The persistance of even so fleeting and evanescent a 

 thing as a set of sounds has been already instanced in the 

 Georgian wine-grower's song, reproducing notes that re- 

 sounded in the Psalms in Solomon's Temple ; if not a 

 thousand years before that on the Plains of Chaldea. In 

 this matter of a cutting tool, experience has no doubt 

 established a model which has been kept to, for probably 

 as long a period. Similarly, I have found the angle of the 

 piers in the Roman bridge at Newcastle, identical with 

 that of cutwaters I have measured in modern bridges. 



At a certain point in the forging, the assistant, or striker, 

 laid down his sledge for his master to finish off" the work 

 with the hammer. Our Persian interpreter leaned towards 

 him and said something, when the man left the shop ; 

 presently returning wdth a European chair which he had 

 borrowed for my use, as I had still some little time to 

 wait before my pick was completed. I am sure I shall 

 be excused for mentioning this, for it is but one instance 

 out of many of the little acts of courtesy we received 

 from the people among whom we travelled in different 

 parts of the Russian Empire. 



I had paid for the pick — a rouble — and was taking it 

 up to depart, when Nikola asked to have it back for a 

 moment, and putting it again on the anvil held a tool to 

 it, which he ordered his man to strike with a light blow. 

 " I always like to put my mark on my work," he remarked 

 by way of apology ; and I saw he had struck a neat N on 

 the steel. 



The artizans in the Bazaar all seemed marvellously in- 

 dustrious. In the smithies they filled up odd moments 

 between the execution of orders by making little things 

 for stock, especially horseshoes, nails, and currycombs. 

 The Asiatic currycomb is a bit of sheet iron bent over in 

 section to three sides of a square [Z , the two edges being 



