West Indian Stone-Implements. 109 
or, as It then becomes, the blade being inserted in or at- 
tached to, the stick as a handle, which handle now allows 
the blade to be driven sufficiently far into its cleft with 
new force ; and, the blade once inserted, the power which 
forces it to one side or the other, to cause the required 
split, is applied through the lever-handle. But, with an ex- 
ception presently to be mentioned, the blade can hardly 
have been fastened to the stick, the wedge and stick 
can hardly have developed into the axe, while stone was 
the sole material used. For an unhandled blade of stone can 
hardly have been sufficiently sharp to enter deeply enough 
into the cleft, nor could it have been sufficiently tough to 
endure, without breaking, either the jar caused by such 
entry into the cleft as it could make or the side strain 
the application of which would be necessary to effect 
splitting. The axe then, as a cutting tool, seems to 
have been a development of the wedge, but only to have 
become possible when the wedge was made no longer 
of stone, but of metal. A stone axe, then, in the sense 
of a cutting tool, is an impossibility. 
But it must be noticed that an implement of stone 
which is in a limited sense an axe not only could be 
made but, as can easily be shown, very frequently was 
made, and is still made by stone-age folk. But these 
' axes' are, not cutting tools, but weapons, intended to 
enter with force into such comparatively soft substances 
as the bodies of the human or other enemies of the 
wielders. Such a ' battle-axe' of stone may be an 
effective weapon. 
It may also be noticed that the parentage — if one may 
so call it — of the battle-axe is probably quite different 
from that of the true axe. A battle-axe was probably 
