36 Materials and Their Handling 



tory of industry reveals an intellectual develop- 

 ment of the man through the doing of things and 

 then imagining how they could be done better. 

 Thus came about continuous development of skill 

 in doing things and improvement of the result. 



Improving the Materials. In further discus- 

 sions about the tribe which my friend had visited, 

 he mentioned how they made their stone hatchets, 

 knives, and arrow heads. For each of these 

 weapons different stones were chosen, and the 

 stones were pounded with other stones until they 

 had been put into proper shape with a cutting 

 edge. Then the maker selected sticks to be at- 

 tached to the prepared stones. He would take a 

 short, sturdy stick for the knife handle, a thin, 

 straight one for the arrow, and a long, substantial 

 one for the axe. These sticks were trimmed down 

 and shaped by other stone weapons in the hands 

 of the workers and finally the heads and the shafts 

 were joined together by thongs made from skins. 



This work with the stones and the sticks was 

 work in improving the materials t and naturally 

 came to pass as the workmen became more skilled 

 in their work and more apt in the manufacture 

 of the articles upon which they were engaged. 

 Still, the progress was unbelievably slow. With 

 the crude methods which they had of finding the 

 materials and of arranging them, it took a long 

 time for a man to make a weapon, while the task 

 of securing food and devising protection against 

 wild animals was so urgent that very little time 

 could be given up to these matters except as they 



