CHAPTER XII 



THE KINSHIP OF COMMON TOOLS 



What a history they have — our common every-day 

 tools ! The oldest and simplest I always think of as 

 Anglo-Saxon tools — axe, adze, wedge, hammer, anvil, 

 their names barely changed for a thousand years. No 

 doubt many an old English house before the Conquest 

 was built with axe and wedge alone, or perhaps with 

 the addition of some simple kind of auger to make 

 the holes for the pins. For the axe will fell the tree, 

 and with the wedge will rend it into quarters, and 

 then into rough planks ; and smaller trees, roughly 

 squared, will serve for the framing and for rafters. 

 The axe will also make the pins that hold the framing 

 together, and the back of it will drive them. 



Saws and chisels must have come to us from 

 France, with those fine old building monks, for their 

 names are French ; and planes too, or some of the 

 ways of using them, for the French for plane, robot, 

 remains with us in the term " rabbeting," just as our 

 clout nail is their clou and our vice their visse (a screw). 



Any one who has been accustomed to the use of 

 many sorts of tools can hardly fail to notice a kind 

 of relationship between them ; what one may call the 



