S2G ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



human frame. No wonder, then, if idols of the bronze-ago, as well as of the 

 stone-age, are wanting in Europe. It is to be presumed that the worship of 

 fire, of the sun, and of the moon, was prevalent in remote antiquity, at least 

 during the bronze-age, perhaps also during 1 the stone-age. 



The preceding remarks constitute a sketch, certainly very rough and 

 imperfect, of the development of civilization. They establish, however, in a 

 striking manner, the fact of a progress, slow, but interrupted and immense, 

 when the starting-point is considered. The physical constitution of man has 

 naturally benefited by it. The details contained in the treatise, of which 

 the present paper forms the introduction, prove that the human race has 

 been gradually gaining in vigor and strength since the remotest antiquity. 

 The domestic races also, the dog first, then the horse, the ox, the sheep, 

 have shared in this physical development. Even the vegetable soil has been 

 gradually improving since the stone-age, at least in Denmark. 



ON THE GEOLOGICAL AGE OF MAN. 



Both the literary and scientific journals of Europe published during the 

 past year abound with correspondence and articles on the vexed question, 

 which is now engaging the attention of geologists, viz. the origin of the flint 

 implements found in connection with the fossil remains of extinct animals 

 in the drift, and in the so-called bone-caverns. In former volumes of the 

 Annual of Scientific Discovery, a full and popular account has been given of 

 all the points of interest in regard to the subject, which had (up to date) 

 been brought before the public; and in the present article we present our 

 readers with a resume of the principal transactions, in regard to the same 

 topic, that have been brought to our notice during the past year. ED. 



We Avould first call attention to the following letter, sent to the editor 

 of the London Athcmcitm, by Mr. J. A. Worsaac, the well-known northern 

 antiquarian, of Copenhagen. 



After alluding to the lack of general information respecting the discoveries 

 of antiquarians in Denmark and other countries, he observes :- 



At the last meeting of the British Association, Sir Charles Lycll, in his 

 opening address to the Section of Geology, mentioned a large Indian mound 

 at Cannon's Point on St. Simon's Island, in Georgia, "ten acres in area, and 

 having an average height of five feet, chiefly composed of cast-aAvay oyster- 

 shells, throughout which arrow-heads, stone axes, and Indian pottery are 

 dispersed." Now, exactly similar mounds have been seen on the coast of 

 Denmark, especially in the Kattegat and its "fiords" or bays. They have 

 been examined by the well-known naturalists, Professors Steenstrup and 

 Forchhammer, and by myself, as members of a committee appointed for 

 the purpose by the Royal Academy of Copenhagen, and have been found to 

 contain myriads of cast-away shells of various common species, mixed up 

 Avith broken bones of stags, deer, of Bos icrus, beaver, wild boar, etc., together 

 with charcoal, ashes, burnt stones, pieces of very coarse pottery, rude hatch- 

 ets, spear-heads, knives, arrow-heads, flakes or chips, chipping-blocks, etc., 

 of flint, a sort of hatchets or hammers made of stag's horn, different imple- 

 ments of bone, and very simple ornaments of bone, etc. Traces of such 

 mounds have been discovered, in the course of ten years, in at least fifty 

 different places near the sea-coasts of Denmark, and the descriptions of 

 most of them haA'e been inserted in the Proceed inys of our Royal Academy. 

 It is quite evident that the greater part of the bones of animals found among 



