5 o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



jerkins studded with iron ; and among the Tunguses and Lamuts, 

 who had learned from the Jakuts. 



But there is an older chapter of Siberian history which was 

 closed in the seventeenth century, as that of the people of the pile- 

 dwellings of Switzerland had ended when the Romans entered 

 Helvetia. Multitudes of sepulchral tumuli, termed, like those of 

 European Russia, " kurgans," are scattered over the north Asiatic 

 plains, and are especially agglomerated about the upper waters of 

 the Jenisei. Some are modern, while others, extremely ancient, 

 are attributed to a ^wcm-mythical people, the Tschudes. These 

 Tschudish kurgans abound in copper and gold articles of use and 

 luxury, but contain neither bronze nor iron. The Tschudes pro- 

 cured their copper and their gold from the metalliferous rocks of 

 the Ural and the Altai ; and their old shafts, adits, and rubbish- 

 heaps led the Russians to the rediscovery of the forgotten stores 

 of wealth. The race to which the Tschudes belonged and the age 

 of the works which testify to their former existence, are alike un- 

 known. But seeing that a rumor of them appears to have reached 

 Herodotus, while, on the other hand, the pile-dwelling civilization 

 of Switzerland may perhaps come down as late as the fifth century 

 b. c, the possibility that a knowledge of the technical value of 

 copper may have traveled from Siberia westward must not be 

 overlooked. If the idea of turning metals to account must needs 

 be Asiatic, it may be north Asiatic just as well as south Asiatic. 

 In the total absence of trustworthy chronological and anthropo- 

 logical data, speculation may run wild. 



The oldest civilizations for which we have an, even approxi- 

 mately, accurate chronology are those of the valleys of the Nile 

 and of the Euphrates. Here, culture seems to have attained a de- 

 gree of perfection at least as high as that of the bronze stage, six 

 thousand years ago. But before the intermediation of Etruscan, 

 Phoenician, and Greek traders, there is no evidence that they ex- 

 erted any serious influence upon Europe or northern Asia. As to 

 the old civilization of Mesopotamia, what is to be said until some- 

 thing definite is known about the racial characters of its origi- 

 nators, the Accadians ? As matters stand, they are just as likely to 

 have been a group of the same race as the Egyptians or the Dra- 

 vidians as anything else. And, considering that their culture de- 

 veloped in the extreme south of the Euphrates Valley, it is difficult 

 to imagine that its influence could have spread to northern Eurasia 

 except by the Phoenician (and Carian ?) intermediation which 

 was undoubtedly operative in comparatively late times. 



Are we then to bring down the discovery of the use of copper 

 in Switzerland to, at earliest, 1500 B. c, and to put it down to 

 Phoenician hints ? But why copper ? At that time the Phoeni- 

 cians must have been familiar with the use of bronze. And if, on 



