STUDY OF HIGH ANTIQUITY. 313 



Now, consicleriug the mcasuremeuts and researches conducted on and in the 

 southern side of the cone or delta, making due allowance for the effect of the 

 embankments, but, to remain on the safe side of the question, doubling their 

 age — that is, supposing them to be three centuries old ; taking into account 

 the thickness of the vegetable mould on the present surface; observing that 

 the volnme of the cone increases in the ratio of the cube of its radius ; ascrib- 

 ing to the Roman formation an age of at least 13, and at most 18 centuries ; 

 and remembering that the cone must have taken time for growing, in propor- 

 tion to the volume of its alluvium, we find, by calculation, for the bronze-age bed 

 of mould a date of from 29 to 42 centuries ; for the stone-age bed a date of from 

 47 to 70 centuries; and for the entire cone an age of from 70 to 110 centuries. 

 The author thinks that it would be sufficiently exact, though still within the 

 limit, to deduct but two centuries for the action of the embankments, and to 

 allow for the Roman bed an age of 16 centuries. This would give for the 

 bronze-age bed a date of 38 centuries (2,000 years before Christ,) for the 

 8tone-age bed a date of 64 centuries, and for the entire cone, corresponding 

 with the modern geological era, an age of about 100 centuries, which latter 

 number must appear a minimum to the geologist. But, not to reckon too 

 strictly in counting by centuries, let us say that tlte hronzc-agc Led is from 

 three to four thousand and the stone-age hed from five to seven thousand years 

 old. 



It is clear that each of these ancient beds of mould cannot represent the total 

 duration of each corresponding age, but merely a fraction of each of these 

 ages, a period more or less protracted, during which the torrent has worked 

 along the central region of its cone without overflowing its sides, on which 

 vegetation could then take root. The suiiace of the cone must usually have 

 been formed of bare shingle, upon which only a few shrubs could thrive. 

 This explains why no traces of human habitation were noted in the gravel 

 iuterstratified between the three beds of ancient mould. The clayey nature 

 of the latter seems to indicate that they probably owed their origin to inunda- 

 tions of an exceptional character, forming loamy rather than gravelly deposits, 

 thus favoring the development of vegetation and attracting man to the spot. 

 It might possibly be objected that, these three beds having been deposited by 

 the torrent, the ancient remains which they contain might also have been 

 swept down by the water from some other locality, in which case the age of 

 tliese formations would remain undetermined. But the ancient remains were well 

 preserved and evidently not worn by translation ; the fragments of pottery 

 and of bricks were angular, as were also the small pieces of charcoal scattered 

 through each of the beds, all three of which contained, moreover, entire shells of 

 various species of snails. The objection raised falls, therefore, to the ground. 



Let us here notice that the minimum date of 29 centuries for the bronze-age 

 bed agrees very well with the purely archaeological deductions, which carry 

 back the introduction of iron into our countries to at least one thousand years 

 before the Christian era.* This correspondence is the more complete, as 

 the style of the tweezers found in the bronze-age bed indicates the end rather 

 than the beginning of that age. If that minimum of 29 centuries for the date 

 of the bronze bed be correct, the minima dates of 47 centuries for the stone- 

 age bed, and of 74 centuries for the age of the entire cone, must also be correct, 



*■ See the chapter on the chronological question in the Etudes gSologico-archeologiques 

 en Danemark et en Suisse par A. Morlot. Bulletin dc la Societe vaudoisc dcs sciences natu- 

 relles, Tome VI, No. AG^Lausanne, 1860; reproduced in English in the "Smithsonian Re- 

 port for 1880: Washington, 1861." Greek coins of the oldest type are met with on the .shores 

 of the Baltic, as far as the island of Oesel. Throughout Germany, as far as the Danish archi- 

 pelago, are found certain antique oljjects, indicating commercial intercourse between the 

 north and the south of Europe long before the Christian era. This implies for that period 

 the knowledge of iron in the north of Europe. 



