GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHEOLOGY. 

 BY A. MORLOT, 



OF LAUSANNE, SWITZERLAND. 



TRANSLATED BY PHILIP HARRY, ESQ., FOR THE SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION. 



A century has scarcely elapsed since the time when it would have 

 been thought impossible to reconstruct the history of our globe prior 

 to the appearance of mankind; but though contemporary historians 

 were wanting during this immense pre-human era, this era has not 

 failed to leave us a well-arranged series of most significant vestiges. 

 The animal and vegetable tribes which have successively appeared and 

 disappeared have left their fossil remains in the successively deposited 

 strata. Thus has been composed, gradually and slowly, a history of 

 creation written, as it were, by the Creator himself. It is a great 

 book, the leaves of which are the stratified rocks, following each other 

 in the strictest chronological order, the chapters being the mountain- 

 chains. This great book has long been closed to man ; but science, 

 constantly extending its realm and improving its method of induction, 

 has taught the geologist to study those marvelous archives of creation, 

 and we behold him now unfolding the past ages of our world with a 

 variety of details and a certainty of conclusions well calculated to in- 

 spire us with grateful admiration. 



The development of Archaeology has been very similar to that of 

 Geology. Not long ago we should have smiled at the idea of recon- 

 structing the bygone days of our race previous to the beginning of 

 history properly so called. The void was partly filled up by repre- 

 senting that ante-historical antiquity as having been only of short 

 duration, and partly by exaggerating the value and the age of those 

 vague and confused notions which constitute tradition. 



It seems to be with mankind at large as with single individuals. ~ 

 The recollections of our earliest childhood have entirely faded away 

 up to some particular event which had struck us more forcibly, and 

 which alone has left a lasting image amidst the surrounding darkness. 

 Thus, excepting the idea of a deluge which exists among so many 

 nations, and therefore appears to have originated before the emigra- 

 tion of those same nations, the infancy of mankind, at least in Europe, 

 has passed without having any reminiscences ; and history fails here 

 entirely, for what is history but the memory of mankind. 



But before the beginning of history there were life and industry, of 

 which various monuments still exist; while others lie buried in the 



