172 PROCEEDINGS OF THE COTTESWOLD CLUB 



iron was not in common use, so far as we can gather from 

 Egyptian remains, until about 800 B.C. — or nearly 2,000 

 years later than the wooden hoe found at Illahun. Copper 

 was known, for a workman's frail was found, with copper 

 tools, at the same time as the wooden implements. 



After the discovery of iron it not only replaced wood, 

 but led to improved patterns of tools ; and the hoe took, 

 in Western Asia, the form of a triangle \7 as shewn 

 in this Syrian pattern* (Uke fig. 17). By setting back the 

 socket at a diiferent angle on the hoe, a new digging tool 

 could be made — and this is the evolution of the iron 

 shovel such as I had forged at Tiflis (fig. 2). 



An amusing instance of the way in which the Asiatic 

 people cling to old ideas, even in the use of a newer 

 instrument, was given me by a friend who has been a 

 good deal in Lebanon. The Friends have a school there, 

 at Brumana, near Beyrout ; and Henry Newman, with Eh 

 Jones of Maine, were visiting it. They noticed the small- 

 ness of the shovels, and to improve the agriculture, they 

 sent to England for spades of larger size. A few days 

 after the arrival of these, Henry Newman was taken aback 

 at the way the Syrians worked them. A man drove the 

 spade into the earth : then stood still, and called " Hi ! " 

 on which two young fellows, each with a rope fixed to the 

 neck of the tool, dragged it up, lifting the mould, ready 

 for the next dig ! But this is the universal plan in Pales- 

 tine. (See Journal of the Palest. Explor. Fund, April, 

 1890). 



As the first wooden plough, then, was the wooden hoe, 

 dragged by an animal, so the first iron plough is a shovel 

 dragged by a horse, or oxen, instead of by a man. In proof 

 of this may be instanced a plough-share from Daghestan, in 

 the museum at Tiflis, which is exactly like my Caucasian 



* It will occur to some readers that the " spades " on plaj'iiig cards are of this 

 triangular shape ; but 1 believe the cards themselves were introduced into Europe from 

 the East. 



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