5^ 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY, 



Fio. 5. 



began to fail they could employ others. Finally tliey fell back on 

 shells, and it is impossible not to admire some of their works executed 

 with such imperfect instruments, with fragments of stone less hard 

 than our silex, and the debris of marine shells. After stone, appeared 

 the metals; but not iron, of which we know so well the uses and 

 which alone has made possible the miracles of our modern industry. 

 Copper and bronze preceded iron ; in America copper, in our Europe 

 bronze, came after stone. 



Finally, iron made its appearance, and many 

 evidences prove that from its first discovery its 

 value was understood. In the gymnastic plays 

 celebrated by Achilles on the tomb of his friend 

 Patroclus, at the epoch of the Trojan War, 

 twelve centuries before our era, a mass of iron 

 is proposed as a prize, and Achilles himself 

 speaks of its importance. 



The diversity of material employed in uten- 

 sils marks the true stages in the history of an- 

 cient peoples. At this time we generally ad- 

 mit as distinct periods the age of stone, the 

 age of bronze, the age of iron. The age of 

 stone is divided into two periods, according as 

 the utensils and weapons were polished or only 

 shaped. It is to this most ancient period that 

 the population belonged which lived in Europe 

 with the elephant and rhinoceros. 



I must refer you to the special history of 

 the several races for further details of their in- 

 dustries. But I will add a few facts to the 

 preceding. Let us speak a word about the 

 warlike industries. 



Wherever human society exists, we find in- 

 struments of war. After the need of food, it 

 seems the most pressing want of man is to kill 

 or enslave his kind. We may say that man is 

 a warlike being. 



Among the lowest people of the globe we find offensive and defen- 

 sive arms ; and everywhere those at the bottom of the scale astonish 

 us by the ingenuity of these arms. The Australians, certainly a most 

 inferior people, use a not very large but very thick shield. Their skill 

 in parrying strokes is most remarkable, as all travelers admit. The 

 same people use curious weapons ; one, called the boomerang (Fig. 5), 

 is a bit of hard wood, very flat, sharp, and more or less curved. The 

 inhabitants know how to throw this little piece of wood so that, after 

 it has struck the enemy or the game, it rises in the air, turns, and falls 

 into the hand of the thrower. The boomerang realizes, then, the en- 



BOOMERANG. 



