46
NOTES—ORIGINAL AND SELECTED.
ANTHROPOLOGY.
A " Wooden Age" in Russia.—It is stated, in connection
with the establishment by M. Witte, the Minister of Finance, of
a Committee at St. Petersburg to familiarise the muzhik with
the use of iron, and to bring iron implements within his reach,
that the peasant in many parts of the country does not possess,
all told, a shilling's-worth of iron in any form. His plough is
wood, with a wooden share sometimes shod with any bit of metal
handy ; his harrow is entirely wood; his cart is pegged together
with wooden dowels, and has often not a scrap of the
nobler metal in its entire composition ; his harness is rope
and straps ; the latter never have buckles, the straps being
wound round and round until they grip, while his horse has very
often not so much as its bit of iron. To turn to other articles,
the muzhik uses wooden spoons, spades, eating bowls ; cooking
pots of clay lifted out of the fire by two forms of iron hook of the
value, perhaps, of twopence ; his hatchet is metal, of course, but
his skill in its use has taught him to use dovetails and coarser
joints everywhere in place of a nail. His dress is innocent of any
use of metal ; he does not wear boots the greater part of the year,
and they have no metal in them for the most part when he does
wear them, on great holidays ; his girdle is a sash without buckle,
and his buttons are wood, or knots and loops. Altogether, the
inhabitant of another planet dropped into some districts of Russia
would never, perhaps, realise that the metal ages had yet arrived
upon this earth, and in characteristic Russian fashion the Minister
of Finance is setting to work to remedy the evil, and provide in
this way a home market which will suffice to keep alive the iron
industry of the Empire when the Government ceases to build
railways.—Standard, March 1st, 1903.
Primitive Fishing-Hooks.—In the Amateur Photographer
for February 5th, 1903, there is a
note on wooden fish-hooks, which
is confirmatory of Mr. E. Lovitt's
observations in the Essex Nat-
uralist (vol. x. p. 300, and vol. xii.
p. 28), on the use of such hooks on the Essex Coast and in
France. The writer, "Menevia," says :—
"I was very surprised recently at Laugharne, a small Welsh fishing village
which possesses a most picturesque old castle, to come ou some fishermen using