The Washington times., 1922-10-01

the Fall, feeling vaguely that soon the
Winter would set in as it had before.
With the Winter, she knew, the baby
would be old enough to eat solid food.
And so with other matters of primitive
life. The hero who first ate a clam
merely stumbled across it as he ambled
along the beach at low tide. He and his
forefathers had cut their feet on clam
shells for centuries, perhaps, before it
ever occurred to anyone to eat shellfsh.
After that sea food became an important
article of diet
But it was woman, of course, who dug
the first clam. Fr COrmon, the French
painter whose phc illustrations of the
findings of the SOrbOnne commission are
shown on this page, gives his idea of what
an early shore dinner must have been
like. The woman, on all fours, prizes
cuttlefsh loose from under rocks, while
her cave man gulps them down raw.
Nor was it because of mans laziness
that woman dug for the shellfsh. Her
hands were small and she could dig better.
Furthermore, with her new time idea she
had learned about tides. She knew when
to expect 10, tide and therefore when
it would be possible to go claiming.
But she could OF explain her knowl-
edge to her man! Speech, outside of
few grunts and gestures, indicating dan.
ger, food and so on, had not been in
vented. So her knowledge of tides and
CLAIMS was a mystery to her husband. He
looked upon her with awe-hut made her
do the claiming.
Now the woman had great zeal else
to do. She had to care for the children
among other things And she could not
spare enough time to do clam digging
with her hands. She hit upon the idea
of using a stick-and the first clam fork
came into being. With this invention she
was able to get her claiming done ip
time to care for the children.
And after this came the invention of
money-by a woman. The clam shells
piled up along the shore or in the cave
and woman noticed them. They were
more beautiful than anythin else about
her-and even cave women gained, in
time, a sense of beauty. So sle learned
to pierce them and string them into
necklaces, as the excavations of cave
dwellings show. Clam shells became
Valuable. They were used for trade and
barter; they became the first money.
And the first kitchen utensils When
the cave mother discovered clam shells
she noticed that water remained in them
after the CLAIMS were eaten. No small
part of her daily routine was taking the
small children to the spring to drink
How much easier to take several large
shells to the spring and bring them back
with water!
Thus woman acquired her love of
! kitchen utensils, and money-a thousand
years ago. That is why necklaces mean
so much to woman. She invented them
And when she invented them it meant
that she had overcome several of the
terrific obstacles that faced herself and
her children.
man and woman had noticed fish SWIM
ming near the shore. And they had gazed
at the fish, vaguely hankerng after them
and wondering how they might be secured.
They waded after the fish time and again,
trying vainly to catch them with their
hands.
Once more woman solved a problem of
existence. Across a corner of the cave
door a spider swung his web and patiently
waited until fly blundered into it. Spi-
ders had spun for hundreds of years, and
men and women had seen them. But
their observation meant nothing. They
did not yet possess the faculty of wonder,
of curiosity.
Then, one day, a cave woman returned
from the beach where she had vainly tried