forgotten people, and they are called the Bronze Age and the Iron
Age; but now _history_ comes in, and there are plenty of old records
and books to tell you about these. Bronze is a mixed metal of copper
and tin, and it was used by the oldest nations who have left any
histories—the Egyptians, Hebrews, Greeks, and Romans. It was better
than stone because it could be made sharper and would not chip, and
swords and armour, vases, axes, hammers, needles, &c., were made of
it.[28]
The Stone Age is beyond all history, the Bronze begins with it, and
the Iron Age began at some distant time before the dawn of authentic
history. Thus we are told, in Genesis iv. 22, that Tubal Cain taught
people to make it. It was used also by the Egyptians for perhaps 2,000
years before the Christian era; but the real Iron Age is that in which
we are living now. We can, indeed, make all metals much better than any
of the older nations.
But there is a wide gap between the time when people left off using
stone and discovered bronze and iron; and if one of the Druids could
come to life he might help us to fill it up, because those old
British priests had many secrets, which they told to one another from
generation to generation.
If the Spanish conquerors had not destroyed the civilization of Mexico
and Peru, we might know something of the discovery of the metals there,
and the people of India and China must have used them long ago; but
the first use of metal in any country where it was found out would
most likely be before the people had begun to put their language into
any kind of writing, so that the time would be forgotten among the
many scraps of lost knowledge which we have tried to collect from the
remains of the industry of pre-historic man.
We have seen how much these ancient people differed from us in their
civilization, and how far they were behind us in everything; but we
must not suppose that they were very different in bodily size and
shape. Some of their skulls might have belonged to a philosopher, or
they might have contained the thoughtless brains of a savage. The
skulls from the Cromagnon and Engis caves are quite equal in size and
shape to those of several uncivilized, and even of some civilized
races of the present time, and there are people in all large cities
whose heads are not better formed. Though the outward signs of their
civilization then were so different from ours, it is not certain that
their mental capacity was much less.
A race possessing considerable civilization may, we know, pass away,
as the Assyrians and the Pyramid builders have. In one of the Pacific
islands—Easter Island—a thousand miles from the nearest land, there
are hundreds of carved images of stone, fifty or sixty feet high, and
weighing perhaps a hundred tons each. The people who made these must
have been very numerous and must have had considerable skill. Yet they
have passed away. The arts of Nineveh and Babylon have only lately
become known, so that, you see, the works of a race may easily become
hidden from us who follow. Quite lately, too, the works of a partly
civilized people have been discovered in Ohio in America. There are
there hundreds of mounds and earth embankments forming fortified camps.
Some of them are several miles round, and they could only have been
made by a very numerous and intelligent people who knew something about
geometry; for the circles, squares, and angles of these earthworks are
quite as correct as we could make them. Among the multitude of things
found here are copper tools made by hammering, ornamental pottery,
silver beads, plates of mica with scrolls and designs engraved on
them, and carefully carved pieces of stone. These carvings are most
curious and excellently finished. They represent human heads and
many animals, such as the bear, otter, wolf, beaver, raccoon, frog,
rattlesnake, heron, crow, &c. A people, then, who could do these things
and took pleasure in doing them must have possessed great intelligence
and a knowledge of things far beyond a simple state. They even had
religious ideas, such as they were, for they had places for sacrifice.
All their works are now overgrown by forests, but it is impossible to
mistake them; yet the native Indians of Ohio living now have no idea
that such a people lived in their country before them, and no tradition
at all about a people whose civilization was so far superior to their
own.
We may come nearer to our own times, and look at the Assyrians and
Egyptians. Until quite recently nothing was known about the Assyrians
except what could be learned from the few references made to them in
Scripture and some ancient writers; but Mr. Layard dug up their cities,
and found that they possessed the arts of building, sculpture, working
in metals, and a written language. All this was buried under the sand
of a desert! Then there is the great Pyramid of Egypt, built in a way
that we could not surpass, and with much knowledge of geometry and
other sciences.[29] The men who designed and constructed these works
could not have lived among a half-barbarous people; and as these are
the highest works of the people, how much there must have been that
went before, of which there is no trace now, when Assyria and Egypt
were in _their_ age of stone axes and flint arrow-heads.
I do not think that the Stone-Age men of Europe were nearly so
civilized. At all events, they have not left any such imperishable
monuments as the gigantic images of Easter Island, the earthworks of
the Ohio people, or the sculptures, writings, and buildings of the
Assyrians and Egyptians; but they might have been more civilized than
they seem to have been from their simple weapons and tools. They might
have made many things which were perishable, and have been destroyed
by time—things which would have given us a higher belief in their
intelligence and civilization.
The past history of the human race may be compared to the rise and
fall of the tide. Wave after wave has risen higher and higher on the
everlasting shore of Time, and when the tide was at its highest it has
fallen again slowly, to rise again and again in the same way through
many ages. We know that man may rise slowly from a simple condition
to much civilization and power, and may again sink back almost to
barbarism, as has been the case with the people of whom we have been
speaking, and then again a new civilization may grow up. It is possible
that all now savage nations are the sinking descendants of some, in
comparison, once civilized people. Modern nations are taking up the
ground of savages all over the world, and soon there will be no trace
of these simple people. Thus it may have been with mankind throughout
all the time during which they have occupied the earth, and so it may
be perhaps again.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] A fine Mexican MS. on diapered cloth, with figures and mystical
signs, has lately been added to the MS. department of the British
Museum.
[23] Some fine examples of papyrus writings on the North-west
Staircase, Upper Floor.
[24] British Antiquities Room, upper floor, Middle and Upper
Shelf-cases, Nos. 1, 2, and 5-12, flint and stone implements.
Table-case B, horn implements from French caves and Swiss
lake-dwellings.
[25] Examples of stone implements of New Zealanders in Ethnographical
Room, Cases No. 45-48, upper floor.
[26] In Lake Mohrya. _Across Africa_, by V. L. Cameron.
[27] At the end of Room VI., opposite the door, North Gallery.
[28] See examples in the Bronze Room, upper floor, British Museum.
[29] Built of nummulitic limestone, composed of shells of foraminifera.
See Case 15, Room V., North Gallery.
_CONCLUSION._
I have now put “The Puzzle of Life” together as well as I can, and
there is not much more to say. You must do the rest for yourselves by
going to the Museums, where all the pieces are collected, and seeing
them with your own eyes. When you stand before these silent witnesses
to the great age of our Earth, and all that is on it, you will feel how
wonderful the story they tell is. They have no words to speak to you,
but there is a power in your own minds which interprets their history
through your own thoughts. They are only lumps of rock and lifeless
bones, but they seem to say to you, “We are living again now, because
we are teaching you a lesson which the great Builder of this Universe
wishes you to learn from us. There is not a stone or fossil among us
but it has its tale to tell—a tale of time and tide, and long past
ages, and innumerable changes, and a life that was, and progress from
a lower to a higher existence. We have obeyed the same eternal laws
of one Creator from the beginning, as all things will to the end of
time. We have opened the great Book of Nature from the first page of
the ‘life-dawn animal’ to the last, on which the hand of the Almighty
has written the name of Man—his most perfect work. We, you, and all
things which have lived and will live, have bodies made of particles
which will be returned to the Earth, no single atom of which has been
destroyed since the first, but has been fashioned over and over again
into innumerable forms of tree and flower, of gossamer-winged insect
and towering mammoth, throughout the long ages in which our Globe has
known day and night, cold and heat, summer and winter.”
There is nothing sad, if we look at it rightly, in this constant
succession of life and death. It is
A moulding
Of forms, and a wondrous birth,
And a growing and fair unfolding
Of life from life, and life from death.
For death, a mother benign,
Transformeth but destroyeth not,
And the new thing fair of the old is wrought.
G. F. ARMSTRONG.
Is it not worth while then to listen to these stories of the Earth—to
spell them out for ourselves? They are written everywhere,—in the
mountains and valleys, the rivers and seas, on the hard faces of
granite cliffs, on the rounded pebbles of the sea beach, and even in
the finest dust of the roads. We have not to go far to hear them:
every foot-step on the ground covers a chapter great or small in the
universal history, and the stone walls of our houses could speak with
ten thousand tongues of all they witnessed in their long life on the
floor of an ancient ocean.
We can scarcely have a more pleasant occupation and greater interest
than in searching for and putting together the pieces of this wonderful
and beautiful puzzle, and in doing our utmost to “Summon from the
shadowy Past the forms that once have been.”
INDEX.
Age of bronze, 161;
of iron, 161;
of reptiles, 81
Aleph, 125
Amber, 69
Ammonites, 90, 97
Animal Part, the, 77;
animals of coal period, 71
Ants, white, 61
Arctic climate, 67;
expedition, 67
Archæopteryx, 91, 93
Australian savages, 127
Babylon and Nineveh, 164, 165
Bear, grisly, 106
Beginning of life, 58
Bird forms, earliest, 89;
reptiles, 85
Blacklead, 58
Boulders carried by ice, 48
Bogwood, 70
Boiling springs, 54
Bronze, age of, 161, 162;
implements in British Museum, 162
Brighton Downs, 99
Burning mountains, 19
Calamites, 42, 68
Cañons of Colorado, 8
Caves of Engis and Cromagnon, 163;
near Belfort and of Switzerland, 141;
of the Vezère, 139
Cetiosaurus, 86
Chalk, nature of, 26;
pits, 20;
ammonites and foraminifera in, 27;
period, 95;
under the ocean, 29, 99
“Challenger” expedition, 27
Changes have been gradual, 43
Cissbury camp, 134
Clay, London, 21, 22;
and mud, 33
Climate, Arctic, and of coal formations, 67
Club-mosses, 61
Clothing, 138
Coal beds, 31;
in Arctic regions, 67;
plants of the, 63;
is fossil wood, 73;
is sunlight compressed, 30
Colorado, the people in, 142
Compressed plants, 15
Conclusion, 168
Cookery, 137
Corals, 78
Creation, the plan of, 117
Cretaceous period, 96
Cromagnon and Engis, caves of, 163
Dawn of life, 56;
plant, 59
Denudation, 49, 50
Dinornis, specimens of, in British Museum, 116
Dinosaurus, 89
Dinotherium, 114
Drawings, pre-historic, 135
Dwellings and food of men, 137
Early histories, 123;
plant life, 59
Earth, early history of, 1, 2, 3;
interior of, 18;
intense heat of, 24;
climate of, 48;
not yet fit for man, 75;
‘foraminifera earth’, 30
Earthquakes, 18, 19
Earthworks of Ohio, 165
Easter island monuments, 164
Egypt, monuments of, 166
Eodendron, 59
Eophyton, 59
Eozöon, 57, 77
First weapons, 121
Fish-lizards, 85
Fishes, fossil, 71
Flint, origin of, 14;
in chalk, 96;
weapons, where found, 131;
tool manufactory, 134
Foraminifera, 20;
‘foraminifera earth’, 30;
drawings of, 97;
specimens of, in British Museum, 99
Forests under the sea, 75, 76
Fossil, derivation of, 10;
plants, 61;
sunlight, 73;
footprints, 83;
human, 157, 159
Food and dwellings, 137
Footprints, fossil, 83
Flying reptiles, 89
Geological part, 17
Geology, derivation of, 19
Geysers, 54
Gigantic animals, 101;
birds, 115
Glaciers and icebergs, 47
Granite, raised, 23;
appearance of, 24
Gravel, &c., 35
Great Irish Stag, drawing, &c., of, 108
Guadaloupe human fossil, 157
Heat of the Earth, 3, 18
Hebrew letters, 125
Hesperornis, 92
Hippopotamus in England, 105
Histories, early, 123
Human part, the, 120;
fossils, 157
Ice age, 45;
more than one, 48
Icebergs and glaciers, 47
Ichthyornis, 92
Ichthyosaurus, 85
Implements, flint and stone, in British Museum, 131;
bronze, 162
India, elephants in, 145
Insects in coal forests, 64
Irish stag, 107
Islands appear and disappear, 39
Jet, 69
Jurassic age, 89
Kangaroo, fossil, 115
Kitchen-middens, 152
Labyrinthodon, 2
Lake-dwellers, 146;
dwellings in Europe, Africa, Asia, and New Guinea, 149
Language, origin of; and of pre-historic man, 155
Laurentian rocks, 57
Lena river, mammoth found, 102
Life, the dawn of, 56;
‘life-dawn animal’, 57
Lignite, 69
Lion, English sabre-toothed, 106
Mammalia, 102
Mammoth, 49, 102-3;
bones of, in Siberia, Asia, North America, &c.;
drawing of, on ivory, 135;
in Essex, 104;
skull of, in British Museum, 104
Man and his works, 121;
his earliest inventions, 122;
mammoth, mastodon, reindeer, &c., contemporary with, 116;
pre-historic, 127, 131;
dwellings and food of, 137
Marsupial animal, 95
Mastodon, 102;
in Europe, America, India, &c., 104;
in Missouri, 128;
skeleton of, in British Museum, 104
Megalosaurus, 89
Megatherium, in South America, 110;
drawing of, 112;
account of, 113;
skeleton of, in British Museum, 113
Mexican writings, 124
Middens, kitchen, 152-4;
makers, life of, 153
Moa, 115-16
Monkeys, fossil, 102;
at Gibraltar, 102
Monuments of Easter Island, 164;
of Egypt and Assyria, 166
Mountains, burning, and covered with snow, 19
Moresby, Captain, in New Guinea, 143
New Guinea, stone age of, 143
New Zealand dinornis, 115;
moa, 116;
stone age of, 143
Nineveh and Babylon, ruins, &c., of, 164, 165
Norway, raised terraces of, 38
Ohio, earthworks of, 165
Oolite, 41, 86
Origin of language, 155
Papyrus writings, 125
Paris, built of shells, 100
Parts, the, are called fossils, 11
Past life, the signs of, 13
Peat, 70
Plan of creation, 117
Plants of coal forests, 63
Plesiosaurus, 85
Pottery, 141, 142
Pre-historic art, 133;
drawings, 135;
man, 127, 131;
weapons and tools, 129
Pterodactyl, derivation of, 89;
description of, 90
Puzzle, the framework of, 1-16;
parts of, where found, 5
Pyrenees, when raised, 100
Rain-drops, marks of, 84
Reindeer, drawing of, on slate, 135
Reptiles, the age of, 81
Rhinoceros in England, 105
Rocks, raising of the;
how placed, 21, 25;
carried by ice, 48
Sandstone, formation of, 25, 26;
Old Red, 62, 81;
New Red, 77
Slate hardened mud, 15
Sponges, 15, 78
Star-fish, 78
Stone age, 128;
first stone age, 137;
second, 138;
of New Guinea and New Zealand, 143, 145
Subsidence, 37
Succession of formations, 41, 42
Sucklers, 102
Sunlight, fossil, 73
Tertiary period, 34, 100
Time, the work of, 167
Tools, polished and rough, 139
Trilobite, 78
Upheaval and depression, 36, 38
Vegetable part, the, 56
Vertebrata, 101
Volcanoes and earthquakes, 19
Water, a powerful tool of Nature, 34, 45;
thrown out of the earth, 54
Weapons, early, 121;
and tools, where found, 131
Whales, 101
World, early history of the, 3, 4;
size and shape, 17;
materials of, 17;
heat of, 18
Work, the, of time, 167
Writing, origin of, 123;
Mexican, Egyptian, and Assyrian, 124, 125;
on papyrus, 125;
by signs, 125
LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
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is written in so pleasant and easy a style, and its descriptions of
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The illustrations are good, and the general appearance of the book such
that it may compare most favourably with other primers of geology.’
GEOLOGICAL MAGAZINE.
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It includes an account of pre-historic man, and shows in many other
ways that the writer is familiar with some of the latest phases of
geological thought.’
ACADEMY.
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in language at once clear, simple, and winning.... In this hard
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WESTMINSTER REVIEW.
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ENGLISH MECHANIC.
London, LONGMANS & CO.
Transcriber’s Notes
pg 29 Changed: For innumerable agest hese little creatures
to: For innumerable ages these little creatures
pg 91 Changed: Footnote 1: Wall-case No. 11 in Room III., several
specimens, mperfect
to: Footnote 1: Wall-case No. 11 in Room III., several
specimens, imperfect
pg 131 Changed: lived as that these flin weapons and tools
to: lived as that these flint weapons and tools