986 OF THE BRANCHES OF THE HUMAN FAMILY. 



furnishing corroborative geological evidence of the antiquity of Man, afford 

 important means of estimating the material and social conditions of his exis- 

 tence in these distant epochs. The most interesting evidence upon these 

 points is derived from the Danish Peat Mosses. These, which are of con- 

 siderable depth, varying from 30 to 40 feet or more, have been the result of 

 the slow formation of ages ; and from the extraordinary preservative power 

 which they possess, have become the receptacles or depositories of a series of 

 objects, from which, by a process of inductive reasoning, the most valuable 

 conclusions can be drawn. On the surface of the soil of Denmark at the 

 present time there flourish magnificent forests of Beech trees, numerous 

 trunks of which are found in the superficial layers of the Peat, mingled 

 with those of other trees, as the Alder, the Aspen, and the Birch. With 

 these are found various instruments constructed of iron, a metal requiring a 

 considerable amount of technical skill in its extraction, partly on account of 

 the chemical processes to which the ores have to be subjected, and partly on 

 account of the extremely high temperature required for its fusion or welding. 

 These tools are accompanied by the skulls of men presenting close analogies 

 to the present Scandinavian type, of whom, indeed, they may be considered 

 as the early ancestors. Below the Beeches, the trunks of Oaks are found, 

 and iron instruments cease to appear, being replaced by those of bronze. 

 Mr. Lubbock 1 has adduced various considerations to show that these workers 

 in bronze, which is composed of copper and tin, were of Eastern origin, and 

 were perhaps allied to the modern Hindoo, with whom they agreed in the 

 form of the head, in the practice of burning the dead, in their leading a 

 pastoral and agricultural life, as evidenced by the associated remains of 

 sheep, oxen, and pigs, and in using cylindrical as well as cubic dice'. Still 

 lower in the Peat the scene once more changes; the trunks of Pines now 

 abound, and with these have been discovered crania belonging to a wholly 

 different race a race who were ignorant of even the simplest processes of 

 metallurgy, and were only able to fashion, though often with great skill and 

 ingenuity, a series of stone or flint instruments hammer, chisel, saw, adze 

 or dagger and who were probably a hunting and fishing nation, burying 

 their dead in tumuli or barrows. Additional information has been gained 

 respecting this race, or the races coeval with them, by the investigation of 

 the Swiss Lake Habitations, the piles supporting which have been found in 

 the lakes of Zurich, Constance, and Geneva; and still more by careful ex- 

 amination of the Danish " Kitchen-middings." In the former the same 

 succession of Iron, Bronze, and Stone eras appears to have succeeded one 

 another ; whilst the latter seem to be refuse heaps, composed of oysters, 

 cockles, mussels, periwinkles, and other mollusca, which have been thrown 

 out around their habitations by men of the Stone period. The crania of this 

 race are small and round, with overhanging eyebrows. The remains of dogs 

 and various wild animals are found in the middings, which, with the canoes, 

 and the bones of deep-sea fish, as the cod and herring, seem to show that 

 this ancient people lived by hunting and fishing. 



826. In pursuing the second branch of our inquiry, it is apparent that 

 amongst the various tribes of Men which people the surface of the globe, 

 and which are separated from all other animals by the characters formerly 

 described (chap, ii.) there are differences of a very striking and important 

 nature. They are distinguishable from each other, not only by their 

 language, dress, manners and customs, religious belief, and other acquired 

 peculiarities, but by the physical conformation of their bodies; and the dif- 

 ference lies not merely in the color of the skin, the nature of the hair, the 



1 Natural History Review, 1861, p 489. 



