Relics of the Bronze Age

1905

Many Articles Excavated at Renfrewshire, Scotland

Until recently vestiges of the Bronze Age civilization in Renfrewshire have been rarely met with, though there were, doubtless, many skilled craftsmen and an extensive population in this as in many other parts of Scotland during the period in question, which is thought to have ranged in time from about the sixteenth to the second century before the birth of Christ.

Lately, however, remains undoubtedly of the Bronze Age in Renfrewshire have been brought to light by excavations near the railway station at Newlands. Mr. Ludovic Mann, F. S. A. Scot., who described a few weeks ago the Newlands finds to the Society of Antiquaries, of Scotland, has had the good fortune recently to locate another Bronze Age site. It is situated between Kilmalcolm and Bridge of Weir, and the most important relic found is a beautifully shaped perforated stone axe-hammer, ornamented with knobs and moldings, and in perfect preservation.



Least Known of Animals

Next to the Liberian hippopotamus the Derbian eland of West Africa, which the Mandingoes call "Jinke janko," is to-day the least known of all rare and strange animals. Even though Great Britain, France and Liberia own practically the whole of the Northwest Africa coast, no specimen of the Derbian eland has thus far reached Europe or this country, and next to the okapi it is indeed the least known of all game animals. — Outing.

Beginning of Use of Iron

1910

Origin Thought to Have Been in Central Europe

It is commonly believed that the use of iron commenced in either Africa or Asia. The latest investigations prove that it was not worked in Egypt until the ninth century before the Christian era, or in Libya until 450 B. C., that the Semites adopted its use still later, and that it has been known in Uganda only within the last five or six centuries.

In China iron is first mentioned in 400 B. C. Bronze weapons were employed in China until 100 A.D., and in Japan until 700 A.D. According to a Mr. Ridgeway, who has investigated this subject, the metallurgy of iron must have originated in central Europe, especially in Noricum, which approximately represented modern Austria and Bavaria.

Only at Hallstatt and in Bosnia and Transylvania, from which countries the Achaians and Dorians are supposed to have migrated to Greece, are found evidences of a gradual introduction of iron, at first as an ornament applied to the bronze which it ultimately displaced.

Everywhere also iron was introduced suddenly — a fact which implies a foreign origin. He says that meteoric iron was known in Egypt in remote antiquity, but no doubt it was worked as flints are worked, by cutting or chipping, and was not smelted. In other words, it was metallurgy, not the knowledge, of iron that originated in central Europe.

On the Antiquity of the Saw

1916

The saw is the earliest tool that has been traced in Egyptian history. It was found first in the form of a notched bronze knife in the third dynasty, or about 5,000 years before the Christian era, and was followed in the fourth and fifth dynasties by larger toothed saws, which were used by carpenters, but there are no dated specimens until the seventh century before the Christian era, when the Assyrians used iron saws.

The first knives on record were made out of flint and were in fact saws with minute teeth. They probably were used for cutting up animals, as the teeth would break away even on soft wood. Rasps, which are but a form of saw, were first made of sheets of bronze, punched and coiled round, but the Assyrians in the seventh century used the straight rasp made of iron similar to the modern type.

In the present day the saw is probably used more than any other tool. It has taken three distinct forms for the working of both wood and metal — the straight saw, the band saw, and the circular saw.