Page:The Ancient Stone Implements (1897).djvu/440

418 of Cortaillod, which. was remarkably rich in bronze objects. This probably is the most ancient sling now in existence. The staff-sling reappears in Roman times in a somewhat modified form, with a receptacle for the stone attached to the end of a staff. To this weapon the name of fustibalus was given.

The earliest sling-stones were, no doubt, like those used by David against Goliath, the "smooth stones out of the brook;" but in aftertimes, among the Greeks and the Romans, sling-bullets of an almond or acorn-like form were cast in lead, and flattened ovoid missiles were formed in terra cotta; both kinds, from their uniformity in size, ensuring greater precision of aim than could be secured with stones, however carefully selected, and the former also offering the advantages of less resistance from the air, as well as greater concentration of force when striking the object. Some polished sling-bullets of loadstone or hæmatite are mentioned by Schliemann as having been found on the presumed site of Troy. The advantages of uniformity of size and form are recognized among some savage tribes, who make use of the sling at the present day; the sling-stones, for instance, of the New Caledonians being carefully shaped out of steatite, and, what is worthy of remark, approximating closely in form to the Roman glandes, being fusiform or pointed ovoids. The same form on a larger scale, about 3 inches in diameter and 4 inches long, has been adopted by the natives of Savage Island for missiles thrown by the hand. These are wrought from calc-spar almost as truly as if turned in a lathe.

Nilsson has engraved a sling-stone of this same form, found in Sweden, where, however, they are by no means common, as he cites but five specimens in the museums at Lund and Stockholm.

Artificially-fashioned sling-stones are not, however, confined to this fusiform shape; those that were in use among the Charruas of Southern America having been of a lenticular form, though slightly flattened at the centre of each face. One in my collection is about 3 inches in diameter and 1 inches thick in the middle. It has been ground over the whole of both faces, and has the edge at its periphery slightly rounded.

The objects so frequently found in the Swiss Lake-dwellings, and to which the name of sling-stones has been commonly given, were, as Keller has pointed out, probably intended for some very different purpose. Many of the forms described by Sir William Wilde, under the name of sling-stones, may also, I think, be more properly placed in some other category. The carefully polished lenticular disc of flint (Wilde, Fig. 9) seems better adapted for a cutting tool; and the flat oval stones, usually with "a slight indentation, such as might be effected by rubbing with a metal tool," were, as I have already observed, more probably used for obtaining fire, like those of the same class belonging to the early Iron Age of Denmark, which they much resemble in character.