280 ANNUAL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



races similar to those now dwelling in the countries. In North 

 America, in the valley of the Mississippi, are found, however, the 

 remains of a race entirely different from those who now live there, 

 a race whose remains are the great earthworks found in that region. 



When we come to Europe, however, we find, first of all, every- 

 where the remains of the great Roman people. In Northern Europe 

 we find the remains of a long-headed people, acquainted with the use 

 of iron, the ancestors of the present Germanic races. These, how- 

 ever, were preceded by a race smaller of stature, long-headed, like 

 the Hindoos, unacquainted with the working of iron, workers in 

 bronze, and traces of them are found all over Europe. 



But behind these, and earlier than these, come the remains of an 

 earlier race still, a ruder race, who possessed weapons of stone 

 ground to an edge. These were a rounder-headed people, the 

 transverse measurement of the skull was eight-tenths of the longitu- 

 dinal, but the forehead was flat, the supra-orbital ridges were 

 extremely prominent, and the jaws were prominent, though not 

 decidedly prognathous. 



At what distance from our epoch was this Stone Period ? It is im- 

 possible to state in years. In Denmark, there are vast peat-bogs. In 

 the. upper layer of these are found beech trees, the trees which now 

 form the forests of Denmark ; and in these bogs are found the remains 

 of the iron age. Deeper than these is a layer of peat, in which are 

 imbedded oaks of enormous size, oaks whose circumference speaks 

 of centuries of growth. With the oak trees are found the implements 

 of bronze. Deeper yet, is another stratum, in which are found pines, 

 showing by their long stems that they have grown up in dense forests 

 into which the light could hardly penetrate ; and at the very bottom 

 of these pine bogs are found the stone weapons. Under them, again, 

 is found peat, in which are found no weapons of any kind, or any 

 remains of man. 



It is not possible to make any calculation of the years that have 

 elapsed between the stone period and the present day, the consid- 

 eration of the immense length of time which must have been occu- 

 pied in the formation of these bogs can alone furnish us with any 

 idea on the subject. But before even these bogs were formed there 

 was a time when the physical features of the country were totally 

 different from what they now are, when the urus and bos primigeuius, 

 the fossil elephant, hyena, and cave be,ar roamed over the land. The 

 question has arisen, was man contemporaneous with these animals ? 

 The recent numerous discoveries of stone weapons, chipped to an 

 edge, and fossil bones acted upon by instruments, tend to the con- 

 clusion that man was coexistent with these animals. The question 

 then arises, what races of men ? Tins has been answered by the 

 discovery of a well-developed dolichocephalic human skull in a cave 

 at Engis, in Belgium, associated with the remains of the animals 

 enumerated above. Since that, a skull has been discovered at Nean- 

 derthal, near Diisseldorf, very different, and much lower in type than 

 that of the Eugis cave. It is a flat-topped skull, so much so that 

 there was a question whether or not its shape had been produced by 

 artificial means, and the supra-orbital ridges are extremely projecting. 



