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MAN, ANCIENT AND MODERN 1

Antiquity of Man, 1--Time required for Development of Races, 1--of Languages, 7--of Civilization, 13--Traces of Man in the Stone Age, 25--Later Period, 26--Earlier Quaternary or Drift-Period, 29.

MAN AND OTHER ANIMALS 35

Vertebrate Animals, 35--Succession and Descent of Species, 37--Apes and Man, comparison of Structure, 38--Hands and Feet, 42--Hair, 44--Features, 44--Brain, 45--Mind in Lower Animals and Man, 47.

RACES OF MANKIND 56

Differences of Race, 56--Stature and Proportions, 56--Skull, 60--Features, 62--Colour, 66--Hair, 71--Constitution, 73--Temperament, 74--Types of Races, 75--Permanence, 80--Mixture, 80--Variation, 84--Races of Mankind classified, 87.

LANGUAGE 114

Sign-making, 114--Gesture-language, 114--Sound-gestures, 120--Natural Language, 122--Utterances of Animals, 122--Emotional and Imitative Sounds in Language, 124--Change of Sound and Sense, 127--Other expression of Sense by Sound, 128--Children's Words, 128--Articulate Language, its relation to Natural Language, 129--Origin of Language, 130.

LANGUAGE 132

Articulate Speech, 132--Growth of Meanings, 133--Abstract Words, 135--Real and Grammatical Words, 136--Parts of Speech, 138--Sentences, 139--Analytic Language, 139--Word Combination, 140--Synthetic Language, 141--Affixes, 142--Sound-change, 143--Roots, 144--Syntax, 146--Government and Concord, 147--Gender, 149--Development of Language, 150.

LANGUAGE AND RACE 152

Adoption and loss of Language, 152--Ancestral Language, 153--Families of Language, 155--Aryan, 156--Semitic, 159--Egyptian, Berber, &c., 160--Tatar or Turanian, 161--South-East Asian, 162--Malayo-Polynesian, 163--Dravidian, 164--African, Bantu, Hottentot, 164--American, 165--Early Languages and Races, 165.

WRITING 167

Picture-writing, 168--Sound-pictures, 169--Chinese Writing, 170--Cuneiform Writing, 172--Egyptian Writing, 173--Alphabetic Writing, 175--Spelling, 178--Printing, 180.

ARTS OF LIFE 182

Development of Instruments, 183--Club, Hammer, 184--Stone-flake, 185--Hatchet, 188--Sabre, Knife, 189--Spear, Dagger, Sword, 190--Carpenter's Tools, 192--Missiles, Javelin, 193--Sling, Spear-thrower, 194--Pew and Arrow, 195--Blow tube, Gun, 196--Mechanical Power, 197--Wheel-Carriage, 198--Hand-mill, 200--Drill, Lathe, 202--Screw, 203--Water-mill, Wind-mill, 204.

ARTS OF LIFE 206

Quest of wild food, 206--Hunting, 207--Trapping, 211--Fishing, 212--Agriculture, 214--Implements, 216--Fields, 218--Cattle, pasturage, 219--War, 221--Weapons, 221--Armour, 222--Warfare of lower tribes, 223--of higher nations, 225.

ARTS OF LIFE 229

Dwellings:--Caves, 229--Huts, 230--Tents, 231--Houses, 231--Stone and Brick Building, 232--Arch, 235--Development of Architecture, 235--Dress:--Painting skin, 236--Tattooing, 237--Deformation of Skull, &c., 240--Ornaments, 241--Clothing of Bark, Skin, &c., 244--Mats, 246--Spinning, Weaving, 246--Sewing 249--Garments, 249--Navigation:--Floats, 252--Boats, 253--Rafts, 255--Outriggers, 255--Paddles and Oars, 256--Sails, 256--Galleys and Ships, 257.

ARTS OF LIFE 260

Fire, 260--Cookery, 264--Bread, &c., 266--Liquors, 268--Fuel, 270--Lighting, 272--Vessels, 274--Pottery, 274--Glass, 276--Metals, 277--Bronze and Iron Ages, 278--Barter, 281--Money, 282--Commerce, 285.

ARTS OF PLEASURE 287

Poetry, 287--Verse and Metre, 288--Alliteration and Rhyme, 289--Poetic Metaphor, 289--Speech, Melody, Harmony, 290--Musical Instruments, 293--Dancing, 296--Drama, 298--Sculpture and Painting, 300--Ancient and Modern Art, 301--Games, 305.

SCIENCE 309

Science, 309--Counting and Arithmetic, 310--Measuring and Weighing, 316--Geometry, 318--Algebra, 322--Physics, 323--Chemistry, 328--Biology, 329--Astronomy, 332--Geography and Geology, 335--Methods of Reasoning, 336--Magic, 338.

THE SPIRIT-WORLD 342

Religion of Lower Races, 342--Souls, 343--Burial, 347--Future Life, 349--Transmigration, 350--Divine Ancestors, 351--Demons, 352--Nature Spirits, 357--Gods, 358--Worship, 364--Moral Influence, 368.

HISTORY AND MYTHOLOGY 373

Tradition, 373--Poetry, 375--Fact in Fiction, 377--Earliest Poems and Writings, 381--Ancient Chronicle and History, 383--Myths, 387--Interpretation of Myths, 396--Diffusion of Myths, 397.

SOCIETY 401

Social Stages, 401--Family, 402--Morals of Lower Races, 405--Public Opinion and Custom, 408--Moral Progress, 410--Vengeance and Justice, 414--War, 418--Property, 419--Legal Ceremonies, 423--Family Power and Responsibility, 426--Patriarchal and Military Chiefs, 428--Nations, 432--Social Ranks, 434--Government, 436.

FIG. PAGE

ANTHROPOLOGY.

MAN, ANCIENT AND MODERN.

Antiquity of Man, 1--Time required for Development of Races, 1--of Languages, 7--of Civilization, 13--Traces of Man in the Stone Age, 25--Later Period, 26--Earlier Quaternary or Drift-Period, 29.

The student who seeks to understand how mankind came to be as they are, and to live as they do, ought first to know clearly whether men are new-comers on the earth, or old inhabitants. Did they appear with their various races and ways of life ready-made, or were these shaped by the long, slow growth of ages? In order to answer this question, our first business will be to take a rapid survey of the varieties of men, their languages, their civilization, and their ancient relics, to see what proofs may thus be had of man's age in the world. The outline sketch thus drawn will also be useful as an introduction to the fuller examination of man and his ways of life in the chapters which follow.

It is only within modern times that the distinctions among races have been worked out by scientific methods. Yet since early ages, race has attracted notice from its connexion with the political questions of countryman or foreigner, conqueror or conquered, freeman or slave, and in consequence its marks have been watched with jealous accuracy. In the Southern United States, till slavery was done away a few years ago, the traces of negro descent were noted with the utmost nicety. Not only were the mixed breeds regularly classed as mulattos, quadroons, and down to octaroons, but even where the mixture was so slight that the untrained eye noticed nothing beyond a brunette complexion, the intruder who had ventured to sit down at a public dinner-table was called upon to show his hands, and the African taint detected by the dark tinge at the root of the finger-nails.

Hence it follows that the historic ages are to be looked on as but the modern period of man's life on earth. Behind them lies the praehistoric period, when the chief work was done of forming and spreading over the world the races of mankind. Though there is no scale to measure the length of this period by, there are substantial reasons for taking it as a long stretch of time. Looking at an ethnological map, coloured to show what race of men inhabits each region, it is plain at a glance that the world was not peopled by mere chance scattering of nations, a white tribe here and a brown tribe there, with perhaps a black tribe in between. Far from this, whole races are spread over vast regions as though they grew there, and the peculiar type of the race seems more or less connected with the climate it lives in. Especially it is seen that the mass of black races belong to the equatorial regions in Africa and the Eastern Archipelago, the yellow race to Central and Southern Asia, the white race to temperate Asia and Europe. Some guess may even be made from the map which district was the primitive centre where each of these races took shape, and whence it spread far and wide. Now if, as some have thought, the Negros, Mongolians, Whites, and other races, were distinct species, each sprung from a separate origin in its own region, then the peopling of the globe might require only a moderate time, the races having only to spread each from its own birthplace. But the opinion of modern zoologists, whose study of the species and breeds of animals makes them the best judges, is against this view of several origins of man, for two principal reasons. First, that all tribes of men, from the blackest to the whitest, the most savage to the most cultured, have such general likeness in the structure of their bodies and the working of their minds, as is easiest and best accounted for by their being descended from a common ancestry, however distant. Second, that all the human races, notwithstanding their form and colour, appear capable of freely intermarrying and forming crossed races of every combination, such as the millions of mulattos and mestizos sprung in the New World from the mixture of Europeans, Africans, and native Americans; this again points to a common ancestry of all the races of man. We may accept the theory of the unity of mankind as best agreeing with ordinary experience and scientific research. As yet, however, the means are very imperfect of judging what man's progenitors were like in body and mind, in times before the forefathers of the present Negros, and Tatars, and Australians, had become separated into distinct stocks. Nor is it yet clear by what causes these stocks or races passed into their different types of skull and limbs, of complexion and hair. It cannot be at present made out how far the peculiarities of single ancestors were inherited by their descendants and became stronger by in-breeding; how far, when the weak and dull-witted tribes failed in the struggle for land and life, the stronger, braver, and abler tribes survived to leave their types stamped on the nations sprung from them; how far whole migrating tribes underwent bodily alteration through change of climate, food, and habits, so that the peopling of the earth went on together with the growth of fresh races fitted for life in its various regions. Whatever share these causes and others yet more obscure may have had in varying the races of man, it must not be supposed that such differences as between an Englishman and a Gold Coast negro are due to slight variations of breed. On the contrary, they are of such zoological importance as to have been compared with the differences between animals which naturalists reckon distinct species, as between the brown bear with its rounded forehead, and the polar bear with its whitish fur and long flattened skull. If then we are to go back in thought to a time when the ancestors of the African, the Australian, the Mongol, and the Scandinavian, were as yet one undivided stock, the theory of their common descent must be so framed as to allow causes strong enough and time long enough to bring about changes far beyond any known to have taken place during historical ages. Looked at in this way, the black, brown, yellow, and white men whom we have supposed ourselves examining on the quays, are living records of the remote past, every Chinese and Negro bearing in his face evidence of the antiquity of man.

ITALIAN.

SPANISH.

FRENCH.

This slight glimpse of the earliest known state of language in the world is enough to teach the interesting lesson that the main work of language-making was done in the ages before history. Going back as far as philology can take us, we find already existing a number of language-groups, differing in words and structure, and if they ever had any relationship with one another no longer showing it by signs clear enough for our skill to make out. Of an original primitive language of mankind, the most patient research has found no traces. The oldest types of language we can reach by working back from known languages show no signs of being primitive tongues of mankind. Indeed, it may be positively asserted that they are not such, but that ages of growth and decay have mostly obliterated the traces how each particular sound came to express its particular sense. Man, since the historical period, has done little in the way of absolute new creation of language, for the good reason that his wants were already supplied by the words he learnt from his fathers, and all he had to do when a new idea came to him was to work up old words into some new shape. Thus the study of languages gives much the same view of man's antiquity as has been already gained from the study of races. The philologist, asked how long he thinks mankind to have existed, answers that it must have been long enough for human speech to have grown from its earliest beginnings into elaborate languages, and for these in their turn to have developed into families spread far and wide over the world. This immense work had been already accomplished in ages before the earliest inscriptions of Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Phoenicia, Persia, Greece, for these show the great families of human speech already in full existence.

Next, we have to look at culture or civilization, to see whether this also shows signs of man having lived and laboured in ages earlier than the earliest which historical records can tell of. For this purpose it is needful to understand what has been the general course of arts, knowledge, and institutions. It is a good old rule to work from the known to the unknown, and all intelligent people have much to tell from their own experience as to how civilization develops. The account which an old man can give of England as he remembers it in his schoolboy days, and of the inventions and improvements he has seen come in since, is in itself a valuable lesson. Thus, when starting from London by express train to reach Edinburgh by dinner-time, he thinks of when it used to be fair coach-travelling to get through in two days and nights. Catching sight of a signal-post on the line, he remembers how such semaphores were then the best means of telegraphing, and stood waving their arms on the hills between London and Plymouth, signalling the Admiralty messages. Thinking of the electric telegraph which has superseded them, reminds him that this invention arose out of a discovery made in his youth as to the connexion between electricity and magnetism. This again suggests other modern scientific discoveries that have opened to us the secrets of the universe, such as the spectrum-analysis which now makes out with such precision the materials of the stars, which is just what our fathers were quite certain no man on earth ever could know. Our informant can tell us, too, how knowledge has not only increased, but is far more widely spread than formerly, when the thriving farmer's son could hardly get schooling practically so good as the labourer's son is now entitled to of right. He may then go on to explain to his hearers how, since his time, the laws of the land have been improved and better carried out, so that men are no longer hanged for stealing, that more is done to reform the criminal classes instead of merely punishing them, that life and property are safer than in old times. Last, but not least, he can show from his own recollection that people are morally a shade better than they were, that public opinion demands a somewhat higher standard of conduct than in past generations, as may be seen in the sharper disapproval that now falls on cheats and drunkards. From such examples of the progress in civilization that has come in a single country and a single lifetime, it is clear that the world has not been standing still with us, but new arts, new thoughts, new institutions, new rules of life, have arisen or been developed out of the older state of things.

It does not follow from such arguments as these that civilization is always on the move, or that its movement is always progress. On the contrary, history teaches that it remains stationary for long periods, and often falls back. To understand such decline of culture, it must be borne in mind that the highest arts and the most elaborate arrangements of society do not always prevail, in fact they may be too perfect to hold their ground, for people must have what fits with their circumstances. There is an instructive lesson to be learnt from a remark made by an Englishman at Singapore, who noticed with surprise two curious trades flourishing there. One was to buy old English-built ships, cut them down and rig them as junks; the other was to buy English percussion muskets and turn them into old-fashioned flintlocks. At first sight this looks like mere stupidity, but on consideration it is seen to be reasonable enough. It was so difficult to get Eastern sailors to work ships of European rig, that it answered better to provide them with the clumsier craft they were used to; and as for the guns, the hunters far away in the hot, damp forests were better off with gunflints than if they had to carry and keep dry a stock of caps. In both cases, what they wanted was not the highest product of civilization, but something suited to the situation and easiest to be had. Now the same rule applies both to taking in new civilization and keeping up old. When the life of a people is altered by emigration into a new country, or by war and distress at home, or mixture with a lower race, the culture of their forefathers may be no longer needed or possible, and so dwindles away. Such degeneration is to be seen among the descendants of Portuguese in the East Indies, who have intermarried with the natives and fallen out of the march of civilization, so that newly-arrived Europeans go to look at them lounging about their mean hovels in the midst of luxuriant tropical fruits and flowers, as if they had been set there to teach by example how man falls in culture where the need of effort is wanting. Another frequent cause of loss of civilization is when people once more prosperous are ruined or driven from their homes, like those Shoshonee Indians who have taken refuge from their enemies, the Blackfeet, in the wilds of the Rocky Mountains, where they now roam, called Digger Indians from the wild roots they dig for as part of their miserable subsistence. Not only the degraded state of such outcasts, but the loss of particular arts by other peoples, may often be explained by loss of culture under unfavourable conditions. For instance, the South Sea Islanders, though not a very rude people when visited by Captain Cook, used only stone hatchets and knives, being indeed so ignorant of metal that they planted the first iron nails they got from the English sailors, in the hope of raising a new crop. Possibly their ancestors never had metals, but it seems as likely that these ancestors were an Asiatic people to whom metal was known, but who, through emigration to ocean islands and separation from their kinsfolk, lost the use of it and fell back into the stone age. It is necessary for the student to be alive to the importance of decline in civilization, but it is here more particularly mentioned in order to point out that it in no way contradicts the theory that civilization itself is developed from low to high stages. One cannot lose a thing without having had it first, and wherever tribes are fallen from the higher civilization of their ancestors, this only leaves it to be accounted for how that higher civilization grew up.

On the whole it appears that wherever there are found elaborate arts, abstruse knowledge, complex institutions, these are results of gradual development from an earlier, simpler, and ruder state of life. No stage of civilization comes into existence spontaneously, but grows or is developed out of the stage before it. This is the great principle which every scholar must lay firm hold of, if he intends to understand either the world he lives in or the history of the past. Let us now see how this bears on the antiquity and early condition of mankind. The monuments of Egypt and Babylonia show that toward 5,000 years ago certain nations had already come to an advanced state of culture. No doubt the greater part of the earth was then peopled by barbarians and savages, as it remained afterwards. But in the regions of the Nile and the Euphrates there was civilization. The ancient Egyptians had that greatest mark of a civilized nation, the art of writing; indeed the hieroglyphic characters of their inscriptions appear to have been the origin of our alphabet. They were a nation skilled in agriculture, raising from their fields fertilized by the yearly inundation those rich crops of grain that provided subsistence for the dense population. How numerous and how skilled in constructive art the ancient Egyptians were, is seen by every traveller who looks on the pyramids which have made their name famous through all history. The great pyramid of Gizeh still ranks among the wonders of the world, a mountain of hewn limestone and syenite, whose size Londoners describe by saying that it stands on a square the size of Lincoln's-Inn Fields, and rises above the height of St. Paul's. The perfection of its huge blocks and the beautiful masonry of the inner chambers and passages show the skill not only of the stonecutter but of the practical geometer. The setting of the sides to the cardinal points is so exact as to prove that the Egyptians were excellent observers of the elementary facts of astronomy; the day of the equinox can be taken by observing the sunset across the face of the pyramid, and the neighbouring Arabs still adjust their astronomical dates by its shadow. As far back as anything is known of them, the Egyptians appear to have worked in bronze and iron, as well as gold and silver. So their arts and habits, their sculpture and carpentry, their reckoning and measuring, their system of official life with its governors and scribes, their religion with its orders of priesthood and its continual ceremonies, all appear the results of long and gradual growth. What, perhaps, gives the highest idea of antiquity, is to look at very early monuments, such as the tomb of prince Teta of the 4th dynasty in the British Museum, and notice how Egyptian culture had even then begun to grow stiff and traditional. Art was already reaching the stage when it seemed to men that no more progress was possible, for their ancestors had laid down the perfect rule of life, which it was sin to alter by way of reform. Of the early Babylonians or Chaldaeans less is known, yet their monuments and inscriptions show how ancient and how high was their civilization. Their writing was in cuneiform or wedge-shaped characters, of which they seem to have been the inventors, and which their successors, the Assyrians, learnt from them. They were great builders of cities, and the bricks inscribed with their kings' names remain as records of their great temples, such, for instance, as that dedicated to the god of Ur, at the city known to Biblical history as Ur of the Chaldees. Written copies of their laws exist, so advanced as to have provisions as to the property of married women, the imprisonment of a father or mother for denying their son, the daily fine of a half-measure of corn levied on the master who killed or ill-used his slaves. Their astrology, which made the names of Chaldaean and Babylonian famous ever since, led them to make those regular observations of the heavenly bodies which gave rise to the science of astronomy. The nation which wrote its name thus largely in the book of civilization, dates back into the same period of high antiquity as the Egyptian. These then are the two nations whose culture is earliest vouched for by inscriptions done at the very time of their ancient grandeur, and therefore it is safer to appeal to them than to other nations which can only show as proofs of their antiquity writings drawn up in far later ages. Looking at their ancient civilization, it seems to have been formed by men whose minds worked much like our own. No super-human powers were required for the work, but just human nature groping on by roundabout ways, reaching great results, yet not half knowing how to profit by them when reached; solving the great problem of writing, yet not seeing how to simplify the clumsy hieroglyphics into letters; devoting earnest thought to religion and yet keeping up a dog and cat worship which was a jest even to the ancients; cultivating astronomy and yet remaining mazed in the follies of astrology. In the midst of their most striking efforts of civilization, the traces may be discerned of the barbaric condition which prevailed before; the Egyptian pyramids are burial-mounds like those of praehistoric England, but huge in size and built of hewn stone or brick; the Egyptian hieroglyphics, with their pictures of men and beasts and miscellaneous things, tell the story of their own invention, how they began as a mere picture-writing like that of the rude hunters of America. Thus it appears that civilization, at the earliest dates where history brings it into view, had already reached a level which can only be accounted for by growth during a long praehistoric period. This result agrees with the conclusions already arrived at by the study of races and language.

In this way it is reasonably inferred that even in countries now civilized, savage and low barbaric tribes must have once lived. Fortunately it is not left altogether to the imagination to picture the lives of these rude and ancient men, for many relics of them are found which may be seen and handled in museums. It has now to be considered what sort of evidence of man's age is thus to be had from archaeology and geology, and what it proves.

When an antiquary examines the objects dug up in any place, he can generally judge in what state of civilization its inhabitants have been. Thus if there are found weapons of bronze or iron, bits of fine pottery, bones of domestic cattle, charred corn and scraps of cloth, this would be proof that people lived there in a civilized, or at least a high barbaric condition. If there are only rude implements of stone and bone, but no metal, no earthenware, no remains to show that the land was tilled or cattle kept, this would be evidence that the country had been inhabited by some savage tribe. One of the chief questions to be asked about the condition of any people is, whether they have metal in use for their tools and weapons. If so, they may be said to be in the metal age. If they have no copper or iron, but make their hatchets, knives, spear-heads, and other cutting and piercing instruments of stone, they are said to be in the stone age. Wherever such stone implements are picked up, as they often are in our own ploughed fields, they prove that stone-age men have once dwelt in the land. It is an important fact that in every region of the inhabited world ancient stone implements are thus found in the ground, showing that at some time the inhabitants were in this respect like the modern savages. In countries where the people have long been metal-workers, they have often lost all memory of what these stone things are, and tell fanciful stories to account for their being met with in ploughing or digging. One favourite notion, in England and elsewhere, is that the stone hatchets are "thunderbolts" fallen from the sky with the lightning flash. It has been imagined that in the East, the seat of the most ancient civilizations, some district might be found without any traces of man having lived there in a state of early rudeness, so that in this part of the world he might have been civilized from the first. But it is not so. In Assyria, Palestine, Egypt, as in other lands, one may find sharp-chipped flints which show that here also tribes in the stone age once lived, before the use of metal brought in higher civilization.

Whether it may be considered or not that Europe was a quarter of the globe inhabited by the earliest tribes of men, it so happens that remains found in Europe furnish at present the best proofs of man's antiquity. To understand these, it must be explained that the stone age had an earlier and a later period, as may be plainly seen in looking at a good collection of stone implements. Fig. 1 is intended to give some idea of those in use in the later stone age. The hatchet is neatly shaped and edged by rubbing on a grinding-stone, as is also the hammer-head. The spear and arrows, scraper, and flake-knife it would have been waste of labour to grind, but they are chipped out with much skill. On the whole, these stone implements are much like those which the North American Indians have been using to our own day. The question is, how long ago tribes who made such stone implements were living in Europe. As to this, we may fairly judge from the position in which they are found in Denmark. The forests of that country are mainly of beeches, but in the peat-mosses lie innumerable trunks of oaks, which show that at an earlier period oak-forests prevailed, and deeper still there lie trunks of pine trees, which show that there were pine-forests still older than the oak-forests. Thus there have been three successive forest-periods, the beech, the oak, and the pine, and the depth of the peat-mosses, which in places is as much as thirty feet, shows that the period of the pine trees was thousands of years ago. While the forests have been changing, the condition of the people living among them has changed also. The modern woodman cuts down the beech-trees with his iron axe, but among the oak-trunks in the peat are found bronze swords and shield-bosses, which show that the inhabitants of the country were then in the bronze age, and lastly, a flint hatchet taken out from where it lay still lower in the peat beneath the pine-trunks, proves that stone-age men in Denmark lived in the pine-forest period, which carries them back to high antiquity. In England, the tribes who have left such stone implements were in the land before the invasion of that Keltic race whom we call the ancient Britons, and who no doubt came armed with weapons of metal. The stone hatchet-blades and arrow-heads of the older population lie scattered over our country, hill and dale, moor and fen, near the surface of the ground, or deeper underground in peat-mosses, or beds of mud and silt. Such bogs or mud-flats began at a date which chronologists would call ancient. But they are what geologists, accustomed to vaster periods of time, consider modern. They belong to the newer alluvial deposits, that is, they were formed within the times when the lie of the land and the flow of the streams were much as they are now. To get an idea of this, one has only to look down from a hill-side into a wide valley below, and notice how its flat flooring of mud and sand, stretching right across, must have been laid down by flood-waters following very much their present course along the main stream and down the side slopes. The people of the newer stone age, whose implements are seen in Fig. 1, lived within this historically ancient, but geologically modern period, and relics of them are found only in places where man or nature could then have placed them.

But there had been a still earlier period of the stone age, when yet ruder tribes of men lived in our parts of the world, when the climate and the face of the country were strangely different from the present state of things. On the slopes of river valleys such as that of the Ouse, in England, and the Somme, in France, 50 or 100 feet above the present river-banks, and thus altogether out of the reach of any flood now, there are beds of so-called drift gravel. Out of these beds have been dug numerous rude implements of flint, chipped into shape by the hands of men who had gained no mean dexterity in the art, as any one will find who will try his hand at making one, with any tools he thinks fit. The most remarkable implements of this earlier stone age are the picks or hatchets shown in Fig. 2. The coarseness of their finish, and the absence of any signs of grinding even at the edges of hacking or cutting instruments, show that the makers had not come nearly to the skill of the later stone age. It is usual to distinguish the two kinds of implements, and the periods they belong to, by the terms introduced by Sir J. Lubbock, palaeolithic and neolithic, that is "old-stone" and "new-stone." Looking now at the high gravel-beds in which palaeolithic implements such as those shown in Fig. 2 occur, it is evident from their position that they had nothing to do with the water-action which is now laying down and shifting sand-banks and mud-flats at the bottom of the valleys, nor with the present rain-wash which scours the surface of the hill-sides. They must have been deposited in a former period when the condition of land and water was different from what it is now. How far this state of things was due to the valleys not being yet cut out to near their present depth, to the whole country lying lower above the sea-level, or to the rivers being vastly larger than at present from the heavier rainfall of a pluvial period, it would be raising too intricate geological questions to discuss here. Geology shows the old drift-gravels to belong to times when the glacial or icy period with its arctic climate was passing, or had passed away, in Europe. From the bones and teeth found with the flint implements in the gravel-beds, it is known what animals inhabited the land at the same time with the men of the old stone age. The mammoth, or huge woolly elephant, and several kinds of rhinoceros, also extinct, browsed on the branches of the forest trees, and a species of hippopotamus much like that at present living frequented the rivers. The musk-ox and the grizzly bear, which England harboured in this remote period, may still be hunted in the Rocky Mountains, but the ancient cave-bear, which was one of the dangerous wild beasts of our land, is no longer on the face of the earth. The British lion was of a larger breed than those now in Asia and Africa, and perhaps than those which Herodotus mentions as prowling in Macedonia in the fifth century B.C., and falling on the camels of Xerxes' army. To judge by such signs as the presence of the reindeer, and the mammoth with its hairy coat, the climate of Europe was severer than now, perhaps like that of Siberia. How long man had been in the land there is no clear evidence. For all we know, he may have lasted on from an earlier and more genial period, or he may have only lately migrated into Europe from some warmer region. Implements like his are not unknown in Asia, as where in Southern India, above Madras, there lies at the foot of the Eastern Gh?ts a terrace of irony clay or laterite, containing stone implements of very similar make to those of the drift-men in Europe.

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