The earliest houses would probably be only one story in height: all of them having a similarity in general appearance. But the chief would soon require that his dwelling should accord with his personal elevation, and obedience to his mandate would result in the rudiments of a palace. The sound knowledge or the superstition of the sovereign and his people would give rise to the structure of a temple, and in the course of time to the multiplying of edifices accounted sacred. Other distinctive circumstances would inevitably arise. To walls rendered increasingly massive would be added towers, gradually acquiring a military character; and places of security to which the inhabitants might retire in seasons of peril. On an assault being made, the men who tilled the ground, and those who carried on the business of the town, would unite in its defense; but as attacks continued to be threatened, or were actually experienced, there would be the organization of a martial force, and the population be divisible into the civil and the military; the latter class being supplied with weapons and trained to the exercises of assault and defense. The implements of the carpenter, like those of other artisans, were long both few and simple. It does not follow that the axe was first formed of iron. As a spear-head of hard wood serves the purpose of some of the South Sea Islanders, so does still an axe of green jade. If to this there was a resemblance in early times, a sharpened piece of iron with a wooden helve would naturally succeed. We know that celebrity might be acquired in its use; for “a man was famous according as he had lifted up axes upon the thick trees.” When Solomon was about to build the Temple, he conveyed his wish to the King of Tyre for a supply of timber, knowing as he said, “there is not among us any that can skill to _hew_ timber like unto the Sidonians.” In early times, the trunks of trees were split with wedges into as many, and as thin pieces as possible; and if they were required to be still thinner, they were hewn on both sides to the proper size. Much advantage was therefore gained by the invention of the saw. As it could only be made of metal, this would occur at a far later period than that to which it is just to ascribe the origin of the axe. That the Egyptians possessed the saw is manifest from their sculptures. David, on the subjugation of the Ammonites, appears to have put them to labor with different implements, among which was the saw. The use of this was not confined to wood; for parts of Solomon’s palace were formed of “costly stones, according to the measure of hewn stones, sawed with a saw.” The art of the locksmith is nowhere apparent in early times: the bolt, the lock, the key, were all of wood, as they are in the metropolis of Egypt to the present day. To produce these, therefore, the carpenter must have been employed. The Orientals looked to watchmen as their chief means of defense.