Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/180

158 secured with cement, as in Fig. 97. In another instance the handle is carved into the form of a bird and inlaid with mother-of-pearl, or, more properly speaking, shell of haliotis. The blade of basalt projects from the breast of the bird, the tail of which forms the handle. In some the blade goes right through the handle, so as to project equally on both sides of it, and is sharpened at both ends.

The socket in all these handles is usually at some little distance from their end, but even with this precaution, the wedge-like form of the celt must have rendered them very liable to split. It was Fig. 97.—Axe—Nootka Sound.

probably with a view of avoiding this, that the intermediate socket of stag's horn, so common in the Lake-dwellings of Switzerland, was adopted. The stone was firmly bedded in the horn, the end of which was usually worked into a square form, but slightly tapering, and with a shoulder all round to prevent its being driven into the wood. In the annexed woodcut (Fig. 98) is shown one of these sockets with the hatchet inserted. It was found at Concise, in the Lake of Neuchâtel. An analogous system for preventing the stone blade from splitting the haft was adopted in Burma, Cambodia,