338 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The mineral Tcingdom. 



The mineral kingdom did most to emancipate the fancy and develop 

 the genius and strength of men through stone and metal; for women, 

 its pedagogic efforts were through the pliant and versatile clay and the 

 water springs. Find a region south of the line of severe cold where 

 clay abounds, coupled with demand for sedentary life, there the ceramic 

 art in primitive times was efiiorescent. The clay and the woman gradu- 

 ally become refined and exalted. The qualities of the material were 

 discovered and developed, the great possibilities of manual refinement 

 and dexterity found a worthy arena. In later times Keramos came to 

 be a man, because machinery supplanted the hand; but at first potters 

 were women. 



On the other hand, if you except the scraper and the household 

 knife, in flakable, siliceous stone, the worker in stone was always a 

 man. Piercing and slashing weapons had their points and edges worked 

 by men. It is with admiration that we now look upon the products 

 of knack and patience kept in museums as precious relics of the men 

 of old. Wherever the best flint was known there the men were quite 

 equal to play upon the material and to be played upon by it, the flint and 

 the artist being mutually perfected. 



But friable stone had in it even more for man than flint. The gem 

 cutter, the sculptor, and the architect went to school to crystals, to 

 calcareous and volcanic stone. The flaker was invented for flint, but 

 the hammer, the bushing tool, the chisel, the rasp, the diamond drill, 

 the saw, the emery wheel and engineering appliances were all devised by 

 men at the invitation of art and architectural stones. In those areas 

 M^here these last abound men were regenerated. A casual glance at the 

 map of the Western Hemisphere shows that only where the engineer 

 and the architect were called for was there aboriginally any approach 



to civilization. 



The forces of nature. 



Professor Eouleau, of Berlin, divides culture into phases which he 

 calls ' manganic ' and ' naturistic ' ; the former term applies to the use 

 of macliinery and the domestication of nature's forces, the latter to 

 that condition of culture in which the hand was aided by the simplest 

 appliances. On every grade of culture women were more naturistic 

 than men. Any culture area, therefore, which afforded occasion and 

 stimulus for the employment of mechanical powers, the forces of nature, 

 and continuous organized effort of mind and muscle was virile and most 

 propitious for men. 



Nor are conditions of climate and daylight to be neglected in this 

 connection. For men, progress was more difficult in uncongenial climes. 

 Women had sheltered, indoor temperature artificialized in the frozen 

 zone with the help of the lamp-stove. Hence all the enduring menu- 



