Something was the matter with the weather.
Early man did not know what "time" meant.
He kept no records of birthdays and wedding-anniversaries or the hour of
death.
He had no idea of days or weeks or years.
When the sun arose in the morning he did not say "Behold another day."
He said "It is Light" and he used the rays of the early sun to gather
food for his family.
When it grew dark, he returned to his wife and children, gave them part
of the day's catch (some berries and a few birds), stuffed himself full
with raw meat and went to sleep.
In a very general way he kept track of the seasons. Long experience had
taught him that the cold Winter was invariably followed by the mild
Spring--that Spring grew into the hot Summer when fruits ripened and the
wild ears of corn were ready to be plucked and eaten. The Summer ended
when gusts of wind swept the leaves from the trees and when a number of
animals crept into their holes to make ready for the long
hibernal sleep.
[Illustration: THE GLACIAL PERIOD.]
It had always been that way. Early man accepted these useful changes of
cold and warm but asked no questions. He lived and that was enough to
satisfy him.
Suddenly, however, something happened that worried him greatly.
The warm days of Summer had come very late. The fruits had not ripened
at all. The tops of the mountains which used to be covered with grass
lay deeply hidden under a heavy burden of snow.
Then one morning quite a number of wild people, different from the other
inhabitants of his valley had approached from the region of the
high peaks.
They muttered sounds which no one could understand. They looked lean and
appeared to be starving. Hunger and cold seemed to have driven them from
their former homes.
There was not enough food in the valley for both the old inhabitants and
the newcomers. When they tried to stay more than a few days there was a
terrible fight and whole families were killed. The others fled into the
woods and were not seen again.
For a long time nothing occurred of any importance.
But all the while, the days grew shorter and the nights were colder than
they ought to have been.
Finally, in a gap between the two high hills, there appeared a tiny
speck of greenish ice. It increased in size as the years went by. Very
slowly a gigantic glacier was sliding down the slopes of the mountain
ridge. Huge stones were being pushed into the valley. With the noise of
a dozen thunderstorms they suddenly tumbled among the frightened people
and killed them while they slept. Century-old trees were crushed into
kindling wood by the high walls of ice that knew of no mercy to either
man or beast.
At last, it began to snow.
It snowed for months and months and months.
[Illustration: THE CAVE-MAN.]
All the plants died. The animals fled in search of the southern sun. The
valley became uninhabitable. Man hoisted his children upon his back,
took the few pieces of stone which he had used as a weapon and went
forth to find a new home.
Why the world should have grown cold at that particular moment, we do
not know. We can not even guess at the cause.
The gradual lowering of the temperature, however, made a great
difference to the human race.
For a time it looked as if every one would die. But in the end this
period of suffering proved a real blessing. It killed all the weaker
people and forced the survivors to sharpen their wits lest they
perish, too.
Placed before the choice of hard thinking or quick dying the same brain
that had first turned a stone into a hatchet now solved difficulties
which had never faced the older generations.
In the first place, there was the question of clothing. It had grown
much too cold to do without some sort of artificial covering. Bears and
bisons and other animals who live in northern regions are protected
against snow and ice by a heavy coat of fur. Man possessed no such coat.
His skin was very delicate and he suffered greatly.
He solved his problem in a very simple fashion. He dug a hole and he
covered it with branches and leaves and a little grass. A bear came by
and fell into this artificial cave. Man waited until the creature was
weak from lack of food and then killed him with many blows of a big
stone. With a sharp piece of flint he cut the fur of the animal's back.
Then he dried it in the sparse rays of the sun, put it around his own
shoulders and enjoyed the same warmth that had formerly kept the bear
happy and comfortable.
Then there was the housing problem. Many animals were in the habit of
sleeping in a dark cave. Man followed their example and searched until
he found an empty grotto. He shared it with bats and all sorts of
creeping insects but this he did not mind. His new home kept him warm
and that was enough.
Often, during a thunderstorm a tree had been hit by lightning. Sometimes
the entire forest had been set on fire. Man had seen these forest-fires.
When he had come too near he had been driven away by the heat. He now
remembered that fire gave warmth.
Thus far, fire had been an enemy.
Now it became a friend.
A dead tree, dragged into a cave and lighted by means of smouldering
branches from a burning forest filled the room with unusual but very
pleasant heat.
Perhaps you will laugh. All these things seem so very simple. They are
very simple to us because some one, ages and ages ago, was clever enough
to think of them. But the first cave that was made comfortable by the
fire of an old log attracted more attention than the first house that
ever was lighted by electricity.
When at last, a specially brilliant fellow hit upon the idea of throwing
raw meat into the hot ashes before eating it, he added something to the
sum total of human knowledge which made the cave-man feel that the
height of civilization had been reached.
Nowadays, when we hear of another marvelous invention we are very proud.
"What more," we ask, "can the human brain accomplish?"
And we smile contentedly for we live in the most remarkable of all ages
and no one has ever performed such miracles as our engineers and
our chemists.
Forty thousand years ago when the world was on the point of freezing to
death, an unkempt and unwashed cave-man, pulling the feathers out of a
half-dead chicken with the help of his brown fingers and his big white
teeth--throwing the feathers and the bones upon the same floor that
served him and his family as a bed, felt just as happy and just as proud
when he was taught how the hot cinders of a fire would change raw meat
into a delicious meal.
"What a wonderful age," he would exclaim and he would lie down amidst
the decaying skeletons of the animals which had served him as his dinner
and he would dream of his own perfection while bats, as large as small
dogs, flew restlessly through the cave and while rats, as big as small
cats, rummaged among the left overs.
Quite often the cave gave way to the pressure of the surrounding rock.
Then man was hurled amidst the bones of his own victims.
Thousands of years later the anthropologist (ask your father what that
means) comes along with his little spade and his wheelbarrow.
He digs and he digs and at last he uncovers this age-old tragedy and
makes it possible for me to tell you all about it.