Morlot.] 220 [December. 



have to look out chiefly for good examples of superposition. It is a 

 chance to find them, but then such chances will befall those who 

 seek. I have had special good luck with the Tiniere,* but then how 

 often have I examined railway cuttings in vain ! The chance con- 

 sisted more in finding the thing at a short hour's walk from Mon- 

 treux, where I often stay, so that I could visit and revisit the spot 

 very easily. The bones from the stone age stratum have been re- 

 examined by Professor Rustimeyer. From what he says, I am led 

 to think that they indicate the end of the stone age, or the begin- 

 ning of the bronze age. This would be very important, for then we 

 should thus get at an evaluation of the duration of the bronze age, 

 since the tweezers found in the bronze age stratum, at a depth of 

 ten feet, belong to the end of the bronze age. Hitherto we were 

 left without the faintest idea how long the bronze period might have 

 lasted. 



" It would be of the greatest interest, to make a careful investiga- 

 tion of the ancient copper diggings on Lake Superior, before the 

 modern works have blotted them all out. 



"Men living in a- continent so cut up by Mediterranean Seas as 

 Europe, can hardly form a good idea of the past of America, in as 

 far as commercial intercourse is concerned. Our antiquarians do 

 not even seem aware of the extreme advantage the features of our 

 continent must have lent to commerce in ancient times. I have 

 alluded to this at the end of the Chapter, Ancient Civilization of the 

 North (Smithsonian Report). 



" Pretty good samples o^ fishing nets have been found in the stone 

 age establishment of Robenhausen (Canton of Ziirich), together with 

 well-preserved bows (for shooting), made of the yew {Taxus huc- 

 cata). Dig and dredge, and you will find !" 



Dr. Le Conte denied the existence of evidences of a genuine 

 copper or bronze age in America, the equivalent of the so- 

 called copper or bronze age in Europe. The relics of copper 

 found in the mounds are neither fused nor alloyed, but simply 

 hammered, and belong, therefm-e, properly to the class of 

 stone implements, native argentiferous copper being acci- 



* The Cone of the Tiniere is a torrential dejection at the point where that 

 stream enters Lake Leman at Villeneuve, and which was cut transversely by a 

 railway excavation. 



