among, not the master of, a numberless crowd
of powerful brutes!

With his feeble means of defence and offence
with gaunt carnivores glaring at him by night
and by day, with colossal bears, hyenas, and
felidæ multiplying around, without any possible
check from him, man was the victim and the
prey. Even beasts of comparatively milder
natures would unconsciously and unintentionally
be his enemies, not his friends—his
servants least of all. Little would he be able to
withstand the shock of angry bulls and
encroaching elephants. Attempts at culture
would soon be trodden under foot. A persecuted
fugitive, man would owe his only safety
to cunning and night. For security, he would
have to retreat to the depths of the semi-liquid
swamp, or climb to a lodging on the steepest
rocks. And what a race of men! As the
polished European is to the Red Indian, so
would the Red Indian be to that poor, primitive
savage.

The relics of this bygone race appear, at first
sight, exceedingly trifling. They are nearly
limited to bones, and rudely cut stones. We
find no inscriptions, medals, nor statues. Our
pains are rewarded by no vases, elegant in
outline or rich in material. We gather nothing
but bones, potsherds, and scarcely polished
bits of flint. But for the observer in whose
eyes the demonstration of a truth is of greater
price than the possession of a gem, value
consists neither in finished workmanship nor in
money's worth. In his eyes, the most beautiful
object is that which most helps him to a
sure conclusion. The pebble which a collector
would disdainfully reject, or the bone which
has not even the value of a bone, becomes so
precious on account of its logical importance
that it would not be exchanged for its weight
in gold. It is the unquestionable footmark of
man, walking on earth thousands and thousands
of years ago.

These venerable though humble relics—arms,
utensils, idols, symbols—not only betray the
existence of a people, their habits of life, their
means of satisfying the necessities of the
moment; they also give us a significant clue to
the thoughts and the conscience of our ante-
diluvian ancestors. They prove that they had
a notion of the future, a faith, religious longings
—in short, that they had caught a glimpse
of the Divinity. The first men who united their
efforts to raise a monumental stone, who hewed
it into shape, or battered it into the coarse
resemblance of some living object, came forth, by
that very act, from association with mere brute
animals, and ceased to grovel utterly in the
dust.

M. Boucher de Perthes is fairly entitled to
the credit of having founded Prehistoric
Archæology.  At first, the few who listened to
him only laughed.  No scientific body would
accept his collections or give house-room to the
treasures he had collected together. They
remained for years in his house in Abbeville, open
to those who chose to inspect them, but quite
neglected by the learned world. He survived
to see them appreciated, and to be himself
regarded as not quite a madman.

The beginning of the matter happened thus.
One summer's evening, in 1826, while M. de
Perthes was examining a sand pit at the
outskirts of the Faubourg St. Gilles, at Abbeville,
the idea struck him that manufactured flints
might perhaps be found in tertiary beds. Years
passed, and he searched numerous localities in
vain. At last, at a place called the "Banc de
L'Hôpital," he found a flint, about five inches
long, from which two splints had evidently
been struck off. Every one to whom it was
shown, said this was the result of accident. He
found a second, and then a third, exactly
similar. M. de Perthes felt convinced that he
had traced the hand of man, and he continued his
search. But learned dons of science refused to
believe that he had found human handiwork
mixed up with virgin diluvium.

But, argued our enthusiast, archæology, like
geology, is as yet no more than an infant
science. It is only by penetrating into the
depths of the earth that you will arrive at really
great discoveries. We have not yet pierced
the epidermis. We have merely scratched its
upper surface and raised a little dust. How
will you demonstrate the antiquity of the
population of any given soil? By the antiquity of
the objects found in it. How can you measure
that antiquity? By the materials, the
workmanship, and above all by the subterranean
position of the objects. We thereby admit a
sort of scale of life—a superposition of strata
formed by the relics of generations; and we
seek, in each one of those strata, indications of
the history of those generations. Consequently,
the deepest strata will illustrate the most
ancient populations.

It frequently happens, in the valley of the
Somme, that after having traversed the stratum
of Roman soil, and of the soil of the Gauls, you
will reach a Celtic deposit, which you recognise
by the nature of its pottery. There you will
find an axe of stone, characteristic, in your
eyes, of that epoch when iron was still rare.
Sounding deeper, you meet with a stratum of
turf, of no great thickness, but whose ancient
formation, if you examine its elements,
appears incontestable. Beneath this stratum is a
bed of sand, and in this bed another axe.
When you are convinced that this axe is in its
natural place, and has not in any way been
introduced into the sand, it is evident that the
epoch of the fabrication of the second axe is
separated from the epoch of the first, by the
series of ages requisite for the formation of
he bed of turf—an interval of time of which
you are able to form an approximate estimate.
You conclude that, during this period, the
inhabitants have been, if not in the same, at least
in an analogous condition; which is confirmed
by historical and traditional probability. The
primitive Gauls, composed of wandering tribes,
and living by fishing and the chase, like hordes
of North American savages, long remained