342 GENERAL VIEWS ON ARCHyEOLOGY. 



process of calculation, we should find from, seventy-four to one hundred 

 and ten centuries for the total age of the whole cone, and this is rather 

 a minimum than a maximum. 



The date thus found of the layer of the age of bronze does not dis- 

 agree so much with what has been said of the antiquity of that of iron. 

 As to the date of the layer of nineteen or twenty feet, if the age of bronze 

 did last so long, as everything leads us to believe, how much time has 

 not man required from the commencement of his primitive civilization 

 to arrive at the bronze epoch ! Must not the progress of mankind in 

 its infancy have been extremely slow! 



We may, perhaps, be surprised, that the intermediate layers of the 

 torrential deposit did not also furnish antiquities. In the first place, 

 there is nothing to show that the locality was constantly inhabited ; 

 on the contrary, it must occasionally have been abandoned for a long 

 while, after the devastations of the torrent. Furthermore, it could 

 only be exceptionally that the torrent, in spreading itself to the right 

 or left, would allow the layer of vegetable soil, which had formed since 

 the last breaking up, to remain. It must usually have begun by rip- 

 ping it up and sweeping it entirely away ; it was only when it covered 

 it again suddenly with a fresh coating of gravel, brought down with- 

 out too much impetus, that it was preserved. Thus the layers of the 

 ancient mould are lost entirely as we approach the central axis of the 

 cone, where the water has always acted with more violence, as is con- 

 firmed by the gradual increase in volume of the transported materials 

 in this direction. At one point in this region there was found in the 

 gravel, but still at a depth of ten feet, a hatchet knife of bronze some- 

 what oxydized, and a well-preserved bronze hatchet, which had, 

 therefore, not been rolled about. Its weight had probably caused it 

 to remain stationary, whilst the earth that surrounded it was carried 

 away by the torrent. 



It is needless to say, that no one of the ancient deposits alluded to 

 represents the total duration of each of the corresponding ages, but only 

 some portion of each of those ages. It might, however, happen that 

 the presence of each of these ancient deposits was consequent upon so 

 many embankments, which, by stopping the overflows of the torrent 

 on that side, had allowed the mould to accumulate and attain a certain 

 thickness. In that case, each of the three layers in question would 

 indicate rather the end than the beginning of each of the correspond- 

 ing ages. This is confirmed, as regards the layer of the age of bronze, 

 by the fine workmanship of the bronze pincers, which were found 

 therein, and which could not have belonged to the early part of that 

 age. As to the layer of mold on the present surface of the soil, its 

 slight normal thickness of two or three inches only, including the 

 space taken up by the roots of the grass, proves that it is not of very . 

 ancient date. 



The cone of the Tiniere has been for three years past the object of 

 continued research, the details of which will be laid before the public. 

 The results which have just been made out, appear tolerably satisfac- 

 tory, but it will be necessary now to compare them with other facts of the 

 same kind, obtained in other localities. At any rate, it is a singularly 

 kickv chance to find thus layers of the three a<2;es in the same excava- 



