The haft was usually formed of a stem of hazel, "with a root running from it at right angles. A cleft was then made in this
Fig. 100.—Axe—Robenhausen.
shorter part, forming a kind of beak in which the celt was fixed with cord and asphalte." A woodcut of a handle of the same character, found near Schraplau, in company with its stone blade, is given by Klemm,[1] and is here reproduced as Fig. 101. A
Fig. 101.—Schraplau.
handle of much the same kind, consisting of a shaft with a branch at right angles to it, in which was fixed a flint axe, was found with a skeleton and a wooden shield in a tumulus near Lang Eichstätt, in Saxony,[2] and has been engraved by Lindenschmit. Another is said to have been found at Winterswyk.
The discovery in the district between the Weser and the Elbe of several stone hatchets mounted in hafts of wood, stag's-horn, and bone, has been recorded by Mr. A. Poppe,<refBericht Nat. Hist. Verein, Bremen, 1879.></ref> but the authenticity of the hafting seems to me open to question. The compound haft of a stone axe, said to have been found at Berlin,[3] is also not above all suspicion. The handles of bronze palstaves, found in the salt mines near Salzburg, Austria, are forked in the same manner as Figs. 100 and 101. One of them, formerly in the Klemm Collection, is now in the British Museum.
The same system of hafting has been in use among the savages in recent times, as will be seen from the annexed figure of a stone adze from New Caledonia,[4] Fig. 102, lent to me by the late Mr. Henry Christy. Another is engraved in the Proceedings of the Society of
