522 PRIMITIVE INDUSTRY. 



after many disputes and much coiivSiiltatioii, iu tile establishment of 

 th(^ I're-historie Ages of Stoue, Bronze, and Iron. This commission 

 found various monuments and implements, evidently of human origin 

 and manufacture, which being unlike anything belonging to the his- 

 toric man of that country, were decided to be the evidence of an earlier 

 and prehistoric man. The most important of these were the Dolmen, 

 which was his toud>, and the stone hatchets. These discoveries were 

 published in 1^>36 by Thomson, archipologist, and founder of the Pre- 

 historic Museum at Copenhagen, of wliich he ccmtinued curator for 

 fifty years. They were recognized throughout western Europe, and 

 they accotmted for similar monuments and implements which theretofore 

 had l)een unexplained, or if so, were attributed to supernatural means; 

 the hatcliets especially Ijeing believed to have descended from heaven 

 in a bolt of lightning or clap of thunder, and they were called by those 

 nanu'S respectively, '"Lightning Stone"' or "Thunder Stone," and Avere 

 guarded as amulets for the protection of property against lire. This 

 was the first step in the discovery of primitive industry. 



In 1859 Darwin pul)lished to the world his theory on the Origin and 

 Evolution of Species, and thus be sought to establish and explain the 

 antiquity of man. OontemporaneoUs with this was the discovery of 

 Paheolithic implements by M. Boucher de Perthes in northern France. 

 The place of their original and first discovery was St. Acheul on the 

 riv<'r Somme, but afterward they were found in other places, — Ohelles, 

 on the river ]\farnc. near Paris, being one of the principal. Tbe latter 

 station gave its name to the im] dements, and they have since been 

 called Clielleaii. So far as can now be asserted with confidence, these 

 implements are the earliest made or used by man. They may have 

 served as axes, hatchets, or knives, spear-heads or what-not. They 

 appear to have been a tool for every use, just as a sailor would use his 

 jackknife if he had no other tool or weapon. Thej^ have been called in 

 England ''drift implements" because they were found in the river drifts 

 or deposits. Their positions when thus found indicated for them an 

 antiquity equal almost to the river valleys themselves, and as belong- 

 ing to that geologic period called by the French geologists " Quarter- 

 nary," by the English " Pleistocene," and by American " Post-pliocene." 



There was a geologic period when the waters of the earth were en- 

 gaged in carving out the ri\'er Aalleys, eroding and cutting them out 

 between the blutt's on either side. In that time the rivers fiUed the 

 valleys from the hills, pouring down their waters with a rush and carry- 

 ing the greatest (piantity of water to the sea. As time progressed the 

 waters subsided more or less and the current became slower and less 

 powerful. At the close of the Pliocene and at the beginning of the 

 Quarternary period, the sand and gravel which had before been carried 

 out to sea, began to be deposited here in this bend and on that point 

 until the deposit came to the surface of the water and formed what is 

 now the highest terrace. Thus the river was narrowed and the terrace 

 became a new river bank. This process was lepeated again and again 



