STUDY OF HIGH ANTIQUITY. 305 



a certain measure, sec our ancestors, but we cannot hear them. We must be 

 content to gaze at them as at so many shadows. 



It might be objected that to reconstruct the past by means of the remains of 

 industry we ouglit to have an abundance of materials such as are but rarely 

 found. Yet fossils were formerly considered quite as scarce, though now mu- 

 seums everywhere abound with them. True it is that time has rarely spared 

 any of those productions of primitive*art which rise above the surface of the 

 soil, excepting here, and there certain monuments formed of large blocks of 

 stone and certain earthworks. This is especially the case in the countries 

 which we are about to consider, and where the use of masonry, cemented with 

 mortar, dates no further back than the time of the Romans. But, let us re- 

 member that numerous generations have succeeded each other, that they have 

 strewn the ground with the remains of their industry, and have themselves de- 

 scended to the dust, carrying with them into their graves many of the objects 

 upon which they placed the highest value ; we shall then understand that the 

 vegetable mould must be rich in documents of the past, like the fossiliferou? 

 strata of the geologist, and that these documents only require to be skilfully 

 sought for and properly interpreted. The ground that we tread is the grave of 

 the past, a vast grave, always open, and which is to receive us also, with the 

 remains of our industry and for the benefit of future antiquarians.* 



It is also true that the preservation of antiquities is very partial, the fleshy 

 a.nd vegetable substances having generally disappeared, so that it is rare when 

 anything but glass, metal, or pottery has resisted the action of time. But it 

 is the same with the remains of the ancient organic creations ; for it is chiefly 

 only the solid parts of plants and animals which the strata of our globe con- 

 tain as fossils. And yet the geologist has turned them to good account. The 

 task of the antiquary is not more difficult. 



In certain cases the preservation of antique remains is more perfect. Thus, 

 when imbedded in peat, or in the mud at the bottom of lakes, vegetable matter. 

 such as seeds, wood, and even remnants of woven stuffs, have been found pre- 

 served. When the substance was charred by the action of fire, before falling 

 into the lake, it became unalterable. Thanks to this circumstance, we have 

 discovered in Switzerland bread and even ears of corn several thousand years 

 old.t Far from being scarce, the records of by-gone ages will become more 

 abundant as they are more carefully sought for, and the materials for recon- 

 structing the past of the human race will not be more difficult to obtain than 

 tJiose by means of which the geologist writes the history of our earth. 



It might seem, from what has been said, that in forming collections of an- 

 tiquities, and in studying them rationally, the outlines of the science would 

 have been soon traced, and its fundamental principles, which are always sim- 

 ple, readily arrived at. It is long since the collection of antiquities was com- 

 menced, but they were considered, as were at first fossils and other objects of 

 natural history, as mere curiosities, even when they >vere not turned into talis- 

 mans and amulets. Again, when their meaning Avas sought, sterile and inter- 

 minable controversies were carried on, as is always the case at the dawn of a 

 new science, so apt is human reason to lose its way. 



A prejudice which has been and is still a gi-eat hindrance to progress is the 

 belief that everything skilfully wrouglit must be of Roman origin, especially 

 objects in metal, the more ordinary remains being neglected and overlooked. 



* It would be rendering a great service to future science if the date were inscribed 

 wherever it i.s po.ssible to mark it, particularly on glass and metal, but more especially upon 

 «nockory. 



t See in the Memoirs of the Society of Antiquaries, at Ziirich, for 1854, 1858, 1860, 1861, . 

 and 1863, the remarkuble reports by Dr. F. Keller, of Zurich, on the ancient pilewoiks of 

 Switzerland. Every memoir published by the society can be had singly on applying to tie 

 bookseller. 



20 s 



