Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1903-05-16 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

INVENTIONS DUE TO WOMEN.  In the world of art and letters women have cover been credited with any great power of creativeness, or of originality of idea. Yet the fact that woman's inventive genius has generally been displayed on the side of usefulness in the past seems conclusive from the following statements gathered together by a recent writer. It has been proved that, while to man belongs the honour of having invented the murderous implements, it is to woman that all those of a domestic nature are entirely due. This is shown by woman's work as exhibited to-day in savage tribes whose state oorresponds to that of the civilised nations thousands of years ago. Woman was the first to bring the food to the family, the first to weave, the first to dress skins, the first to make pottery, and to encourage art and religion. I.n grinding gram woman first used two flat stones; then she originated the mortar and pestle, implements still common in every drug store of the preFent day. In California and in Asia this primitive in. thod of pulverising the grain is still in use among the women of the tribes. Among the Arabs the women do all the work at the mills, which are flat stones turned by a rude  handle. Implements of agriculture were fashioned by women, and Dr. Livingstone tells of a double handled hoe, made by wome,i, which he saw in Africa. Long before the age of discovery the women of that country nos only gathered and ground the grain, but also mails the rude ploughs and mills which assisted in the work. That woman was the inventor of weaving is almost certain and a collection shows some beautiful work in that line. Baskets of various shapes and sizes are in a big ease, some of them beautifully oolourctd. Baskets of wood, grass, and fibre were fashioned by women of all tribes. Among the Algonquin& of America beautiful baskets are fashioned by means of the peelings from the birch tree, and in Polynesia the women make one that is almost an exact reproduotion of those used by the North American Indians. Woman was also the first to dry and Use skins for clothing, as is shown by the feet that among all tribes that ha e been her work since the dawn of history. The man killed the boast and laid it at his wife's feet, and with the help of rude atone knives she then scraped the flesh, and left the thin outer skin, which she dried, and by means of the threads of sinew made into clothing for her husband and children. The t used by the Esquimaux is of ivory from walrus teeth, and at the present day the custom of the women chewing the skin to remove all flesh still obtains, according to the account of Mrs Peary. The skins, when deprived of the hair, make a soft and impervious rawhide, which is used by the man of the Arctios to oover his boat. Profeesor Mason has shown that woman was the inventor of all oeramio work. The Esquimaux woman has nuide pots or lamps of day mixed with dog's hair and blood, and these are similar to those found in the teanple of Vesta. at Rome, while the art and tools of the potter are such as were in use thousands of years ego by women. The Pueblo women, of• Colorado, make fine specimens of pottery. The water jars of Bible times were, no doubt, the work of women of that day.