The Discovery of the Bow and Arrow

The Discovery of the Bow and Arrow

When the bright star Vega in the constellation of Lyra, and which is directly over your head at 9 o'clock on an August night, was the pole-star—that is, when it was in the place where the North Star is now—boys and men were still making and using stone tools and implements, and that was about 14,000 years ago.

This recent Stone Age boy was playing with the green limb of a tree which he had broken off and bending it he thought the tremendous thought of keeping it bent by tying its ends with a cord of sinew and thus it was he became the discoverer of the stringed musical instrument and a weapon of the chase and of warfare at one and the same time.

He found by picking the string it would twang out a sound that thrilled him even as an urchin of today is thrilled by the music of a street piano. By trumming on the stretched sinew with a smaller stick he produced a new musical effect.

But his greatest achievement was when he held one end of a stick against the sinew and drawing it back he would let it slip when it would shoot to a distance of twenty or more feet. The bow and arrow had been discovered, and then on down through the ages of savagery and medievalism it was experimented with and improved upon until by the time the Battle of Agincourt was fought in 1415 it had reached its highest point of perfection and the men who drew the longbow in those days were the strongest and most skillful bowmen the world has ever seen.

Collins, A. Frederick. Shooting, for Boys,. New York: Moffat, Yard and, 1917. Print.

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