Bos primigenius, which existed in the time of Julius Cæsar. He concludes that the primitive man, who left these "kitchen refuse heaps" behind him as monuments of the stone age of the world, was not a cannibal, because no human bones are found in them; that he was not an agriculturist, because no grain of any sort is found amongst this offal; that man in that age lived by fishing and hunting, and had no domestic animals but the dog, because the bones of such animals are not found in these heaps; and that he was of smaller stature than his successors of the bronze and iron ages, and had a small, round head, like the present Laplander, because a few stray skulls picked up in the vicinity or found in the peat, were of this description, while those of the bronze and iron age of the world, were "of an elongated form and larger size.” He admits, however, that "there appear to be very few well authenticated examples of crania referable to the bronze period."

The early explorers of the new world found far stronger evidence to show that just such a primitive stone age existed contemporaneously with the advanced civilization of Europe, and that just such a primeval man roamed over the buried memorials of a preceding and more civilized race. In the supposed absence of all historic records, the archæologists of a far distant future, would trace back the civilization of the present iron age of the United States, to this Indian stone age, with just as much show of reason as antiquarians now refer the civilization of Europe to a primitive period of rude flint implements, from which it gradually emerged and advanced slowly, through successive ages of bronze and iron.

There is nothing to forbid the belief, that while a few roaming hunters were making their "refuse heaps" on the distant shores of the Northern Ocean, there were populous communities of more enlightened men in those Eastern centers of civilization, which are known to have been the oldest seats of art.

It is more reasonable to believe, that occasional contact with these centers subsequently improved the condition of these stragglers, and added a few metal tools to their stock of flints, before they were overtaken by the general march of civilization, than to suppose that primeval savages gradually origin

ated language and arts, during these assumed countless ages of progressive advancement, of which there is no evidence save these metal tools. The requisite time claimed for such progress, however small the original number of the autochthones, must necessarily have begotten a teeming population, which would have left, everywhere, numerous memorials of its presence; whereas, a few scattered bones and here and there a skull are all that remain to indicate the existence of myriads. It cannot be asserted, with any show of reason, that time has destroyed all but a very few specimens of this human multitude, and yet spared, in great abundance, the smallest bones of animals which they consumed for food. It is far more in accordance with probability, as well as history, to conclude, from these archæological facts, that contact with civilization had, from time to time, introduced weapons and utensils of metal, than to imagine long successive ages of stone, bronze and iron, in order to account for a few bronze or iron implements, found interspersed with the flint relics of the original sparse settlers.

Nor is there anything, in the occasional superposition or wide range of these scattered relics, to justify a generalization so sweeping, and so beset with insurmountable difficulties. That stragglers, roaming from the centers of civilization and becoming savage, should universally first adopt the rudest means at hand, such as flint and bone, to supply themselves with tools and implements of war, is conceded. That such savage tribes may have, in many instances, originated some steps towards the arts and sciences, and have invented, successively, instruments of bronze and iron, we will also concede. But do these conceded facts, and the relics which attest them, force us to the conclusion that man was, ab origine, a savage, just removed above the brutal state,—if not of bestial origin,--and that he has advanced from this brutal state to civilization, through the countless ages of time necessary for such a being to invent, first, language, and then arts and sciences? Or was he, at the start, created a more perfect being, endowed with speech, with developed moral and intellectual faculties, and with divinely implanted germs of knowledge, which readily developed into those arts and sciences which his wants demanded ?

These are the two questions at issue. The latter theory is consistent with all known facts, and with the history of the race. It satisfactorily accounts for the rapid progress of civilization, in certain primitive centers, and for its subsequent lapse, from adverse causes,—in these same centers, leaving behind monuments to attest its previous existence. It also satisfactorily explains the origin and long continuance of barbarism in those tribes which had become separated from these centers, and accounts for those relics which record their imperfect attempts to recover a lost civilization. This theory is taught and explained by a Book, the authenticity of which, as a Divine revelation, is capable of verification, and the testimony of which, thus verified, is decisive.

The other and opposite theory is maintained by our author, and by those who advocate the fanciful views of Darwin and Huxley. It requires the admission of great improbabilities, not to say impossibilities; it rests chiefly on opinions, assumptions, and unwarrantable generalizations of isolated facts, and is supported solely by a few obscure relics of a barbarous antiquity, which are much more rationally accounted for by the opposite theory, than by the hypothesis which is proposed as a substitute. It demands, as a necsssary element, an immense antiquity for man, and this demand Sir Charles Lyell attempts to supply from the geological record.

He brings to bear on this point, with tiresome profusion, all the opinions, assumptions and speculations of others, as suggestive, approximate or decisive, to which he very quietly adds, without proof or argument, his own opinions, in the way of correction, modification or confirmation. The evidence of the Danish peat and shell mounds, is summed up in the following words :-

"How many generations of each species of tree flourished in succession before the pine was supplanted by the oak, and the oak by the beech, can be but vaguely conjectured; but the minimum of time required for the formation of so much peat, must, according to the estimate of Steenstrup and other good authorities, have amounted to at least 4000 years; and there is nothing in the observed rate of tho growth of the peat opposed to the conclusion that the number of centuries may not have been four times as great, even though the signs of

man's existence have not yet been traced down to the lowest or amorphous stratum. As to the "shell mounds," they correspond in date to the older portion of the peaty record, or to the earliest part of the age of stone as known in Denmark."-p. 17.

In other words, according to Mr. Steenstrup, the flint instrument "taken out with his own hands" from a peat bog, must be at least 4,000 years old; but our author thinks it might have been 16,000 years old, and that other still older signs of man's existence might be traced still farther down in the peat. He quietly assumes that the "shell mounds" are as old as the oldest part of the peat, and belong to the earliest part of the assumed Danish stone age.

In another part of the volume, he assumes a far greater antiquity for an implement found in peat; advancing, in proof, the opinion of a French archæologist, whose ideas in regard to the formation of this substance are not so liberal as Mr. Steenstrup's. To say nothing of the great liability of stone and metal tools to sink in the soft muck of a peat bog, there are conclusive reasons for setting aside all the evidence of man's antiquity drawn from peat deposits, upon which our author, in different parts of his book, lays great stress.

So varying are the conditions which modify the rate of growth of peat, and so various are the accidents which attend its accumulation, or deposit in "hollows," that no reliable indication of age can be derived from the quantity or depth of this deposit. Many facts corroborative of this statement, might be produced from the previous works of Sir Charles Lyell, and from other authors. But to show how perfectly unreliable is the above calculation, which is based on the depth at which a flint instrument was found in these Danish "hollows," we need only quote the words of our author used elsewhere:

"The depth of overlying peat affords no safe criterion for calculating the age of the cabin or village, for I have shown in the Principles of Geology' (Ch. XLVI.)* that both in England and Ireland, within historical times, bogs have burst and sent forth great volumes of black mud, which has been known to creep over the country at a slow pace, flowing somewhat at the rate of ordinary lava currents, and

* See Book III., Chap. XIII., first Am. Edition, 1837.

sometimes overwhelming woods and cottages, and leaving a deposit upon them of bog earth fifteen feet thick."

The well known account of the bursting of Solway Moss, in 1772, caused by rains, the like of which had not occurred for 200 years, and by reason of which its peaty matter flowed into the valley of the Esk, overwhelming farms and hamlets, explains how the relics of man may be found in ancient peat deposits, accumulated in "hollows," without attributing to these deposits any great previous antiquity.

In regard, also, to the time necessary for the formation of peat, there is a remarkable fact on record, which proves the unreliableness of Lyell's estimates of antiquity, drawn from this source. In 1711, George, Earl of Cromartie, at the age of eighty years, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, a very valuable paper on this subject. He states that in 1651, in passing through the parish of Lochbrun, he carefully noticed a wood of very ancient fir trees, standing firm on a little plain of half a mile round, midway on the slope of a very high hill. On visiting this locality fifteen years afterwards, he was surprised to find in the place of this wood, a level surface of moss, with not a vestige of a tree to be seen. Upon inquiry, he was informed that the wood had been prostrated by winds, and that their interlaced trunks, arresting the moisture from the declivity above, had caused the whole to be overgrown by "a green moss or bog," which was unsafe to cross. Doubting the fact, he made the attempt, and immediately sank in the bog up to his arm-pits, before he could be withdrawn. He goes on to state, that in 1699, "the whole piece of ground was turned into a common moss, where the country people were digging turf and peats, and still continue so to do."

Here we see that forty-eight years sufficed for the formation, on firm land, of a peat deposit of such thickness as would denote, according to Lyell's estimate, an antiquity greater than that assigned to Adam. In the absence of this record, had he found, as he doubtless might, some relic of human art in the soil under this deposit, he would, as in other cases, have advanced it as an incontestable proof of a pre-Adamite man.