The title is The first ice skates were made to cross frozen canals By Smithsonian.com and the central idea is how was ice skates made and used 3,000 years ago."Federico Formenti is a scientist. He has studied the history of ice skates. During the 1400s, skates were as popular in Holland "as cars are in America today,” Formenti said." This shows how they were used and what they were used for i think that skates back then were really easy to make from what it said in the article."The first skates were made from horse or cow bones. They could move sideways. Today's skates only travel forward and backward. Today's skates have narrow metal blades. Bone skates did not have a blade. They lay flat on the ice." this explains how they were made back