Page:Collier's New Encyclopedia v. 09.djvu/246

LEFT SWORD 202 SWORDFISH the names under which, in different shapes, it has been known in different lands and in successive ages, are beyond computation. It is sufficient to say that the general term includes weapons so diverse as the short cutting and piercing daggers and poignards and the ponder- ous two-handed swords of the 15th cen- tury. The blade may thus vary in length from a few inches to four feet and up- ward. It may be furnished with a cut- ting edge on one side only, or on both sides. It may be uniform in breadth throughout with a truncated end, or it may taper from the hilt to a fine point. The blade, moreover, may have a piercing point alone, as in the rapier, and it may be curved through- out its entire length, as in the Oriental scimitar. The hilt, with its many forms of guard, grip, and pommel, similarly adds to the variations of the weapon. The sword, of course, could not be a weapon of primitive man; but it is easy to trace its development from the forms of weapon in use in the stone and early bronze ages. The sword came into use only when men had attained considerable skill in casting and working bronze, and the ancient bronze swords, many of which have been found throughout Eu- rope with two-edged blades measuring 2 feet in length, are well finished weap- ons. The early Greek sword was mere- ly a strong two-edged knife; but about 400 B. c. its form was improved and its size doubled by Iphicrates. The gladius of the Romans was still of the same form — a straight two-edged blade, heav- ier and longer, however, than the Greek weapon. During the early Middle Ages there does not appear to have been much de- velopment in the form of the sword in Europe. As shown by the Bayeux Tap- estry and other contemporary illustra- tions, it continued to be a short cutting weapon, with a blade of uniform breadth bluntly pointed, and to give it balance it was channeled from the hilt for about two-thirds of its length. The cross guard, subsequently called the quillons, was short, projecting at right angles from the blade, but sometimes bent for- ward in the direction of the point. With the introduction of the two- handed sword, the use of a shield being no longer possible, the guard gradually became more complicated, so as to give greater protection to the hands of the swordsman, and from the use of shell guards and ring guards, etc., the basket hilt, as applied to lighter swords, by degrees developed. The ordinary basket hilt sword, such as is worn by officers of Highland regiments at the present day, is of Italian origin, and grew out of the Venetian schiavone. The rapier—* a piercing weapon only, with a blade tapering to a fine point — came into use in the early part of the 16th century, and in the 17th century it became the weapon of fencing and dueling. From very early times, Toledo, Se- ville, and some other Spanish towns had a high reputation for the excellence of the swords made by their armorers, and when to their own skill was added the perfect craftsmanship of their Moorish conquerors the renown of Spanish blades became supreme. In the North Italian towns also, as well as at Solingen and Passau in Germany, swords of famous quality were fabricated. Who the ori- ginal maker of Ferrara blades was is not known, but in the 16th century there was a family of armorers named Fer- rara in North Italy, one member of which, called Andrea, was born in 1555. In modern warfare the sword posseses little more than an honorary military significance. SWORDBILL, a popular name for any individual of the humming bird genus, Docimastes. The bill, which exceeds in length the body of the bird, is a character SWORDBILL by which this humming bird may be diS'i tinguished at the first glance. One spe- cies is known, D. ensiferus, an inhabi- tant of Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. SWORDriSH, in astronomy, the con- stellation. Dorado. In ichthyology, a popular name for any individual of thei Xiphiidss. They are pelagic fishes, wide- ly distributed in tropical and sub-tropi- cal seas. Their popular name is derived from their formidable sword-like weapon, formed by the coalescence and prolonga- tion of the maxillary and intermaxillary bones beyond the lower jaw; it is very