134 OUR PHYSICAL WORLD 



then hunted but which are no longer living in Europe, such as 

 the straight-tusk elephant, the mammoth, the hippopotamus, 

 the giant beaver, bison, and the lion. The wounds made by the 

 hunters' stone- tipped arrows are still discernible in some of the 

 bones of the well-preserved animal skeletons. Just how old 

 these early arrowheads are, there is difference of opinion, but 

 probably they were made by primitive man well over 100,000 

 years ago. There are still savage tribes who hunt with the bow 

 and arrow, so that it is a weapon that has been used by man 

 these many hundreds of centuries. 



The bow and arrow are largely confined to those savage 

 peoples inhabiting regions where some very elastic wood grows. 

 It is essentially an arm of the natives of North America and 

 Asia. In the latter territory the bamboo is used chiefly in its 

 construction; in North America, however, a great variety of 

 woods enter into its construction. The Indians of California 

 used the desert juniper; the plains Indians, the osage orange, 

 called by the French Bois d'Arc, or bow wood. In many cases 

 the bow was backed with deer sinew glued on and strengthened 

 by encircling bands of sinew along the bow. Among the 

 Eskimos the sinew furnishes the elasticity entirely, the wood 

 being applied in small bits for the sake of rigidity, for it is scarce. 



The bow has played no mean part in the history of the civilized 

 world. Apart from its service in obtaining food and clothing for 

 man by bringing down the quarry for the huntsman, it has been 

 the deciding factor in many a hard-fought battle. The armies 

 of the ancient peoples, the Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and 

 Romans, all have had bodies of trained archers. The Hebrews 

 found some of their foes so well trained in the use of the bow that 

 they were compelled to adopt it, also, and train their archers. 



It was not until the long bow was perfected by the Scotch and 

 English that the bowmen came to be really formidable. This 

 long bow was 6 feet or more in length, was made of stout yew 

 or lance wood, and drove a feathered arrow 30 inches in length 

 with such tremendous force that it would go entirely through 



