PREHISTORIC TIMES. 101 



PREHISTORIC TIMES. 1 



Br Dk. T. M. COAN. 



Ethnology is passing at present through a phase from which older 

 sciences have safely emerged. The new views with reference to the 

 antiquity of man are still looked upon by some persons with distrust 

 and apprehension. Yet, says the distinguished author, of whose re- 

 searches we are about to give some account, these new views " will, I 

 doubt not, in a few years, be regarded with as little disquietude as are 

 now those discoveries in astronomy and geology which at one time 

 excited even greater opposition." It is now pretty generally admitted 

 that the first appearance of Man in Europe dates from a period so re- 

 mote, that neither history, nor even tradition, can throw any light on 

 his origin, or mode of life. Under these circumstances, some have sup- 

 posed that the past is hidden from the present by a veil, which time 

 will probably thicken, but never can remove. Thus our prehistoric 

 antiquities have been valued as monuments of ancient skill and perse- 

 verance, not regarded as pages of ancient history ; recognized as inter- 

 esting vignettes, not as historical pictures. Some writers have assured 

 us that, in the words of Palgrave, " we must give it up, that speech- 

 less past ; whether fact or chronology, doctrine or mythology ; 

 whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, or America ; at Thebes or Palenque, 

 on Lycian shore or Salisbury Plain : lost is lost ; gone is gone for- 

 ever." 



Of late years, however, a new Science has been born among us 

 which deals with times and events far more ancient than any Which 

 have yet fallen within the province of the archaeologist. The geolo- 

 gist reckons not by days or by years ; the whole six thousand years, 

 which were until lately looked on as the sum of the world's existence, 

 are to him but one unit of measurement in the long succession of past 

 ages. 



Our knowledge of geology is, of course, very incomplete ; on some 

 questions we shall, no doubt, see reason to change our opinion, but, on 

 the whole, the conclusions to which it points are as definite as those of 

 aoology, chemistry, or any of the kindred sciences. Nor does there 

 appear to be any reason why those methods of examination which 

 have proved so successful in geology, should not also be used to throw 

 light on the history of man in prehistoric times. Archaeology forms, 

 in fact, the link between geology and history. But, while other 

 animals leave only teeth and bones behind them, the men of the ear- 

 liest ages are to be studied principally by their works ; they have left 



1 " Prehistoric Tiroes as illustrated by Ancient Remains, and the Manners and Cus- 

 toms of Modern Savages By Sir John Lubbock, Bart,, M. P., Vice-President of the 

 Royal Society," etc., etc. 8vo, pp. 640. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 



