52 NATURAL SCIENCE. January, 



chapter vi., on " The Antiquity of Man," the recession of Niagara is 

 known to give correlative time of 12,000 to 18,450 years since the 

 Glacial Period. Other standards for the calculation of this time are 

 quoted at p. 139. 



In chapter ix., the abodes of the living and sepulchres of the 

 dead of these prehistoric times are described. The kitchen-middens 

 and shell-mounds are useful indications of modes and conditions of 

 life in many parts of the world. So are the mounds, barrows, tumuli, 

 and other tombs, of the character of the deceased, and of the culture 

 of the survivors. Much interesting detail is collected from writers 

 on these and collateral subjects. 



The former existence of a short-statured race throughout Europe 

 and the British Isles is strongly believed by Mr. Hutchinson. An 

 early expression thereof occurs at p. 30, where he seems to suppose 

 that small flint-flakes must have belonged to a small kind of men. 

 He mentions " Moustier in the Dordogne district " as connected 

 somehow with evidence of this. He gives no reference thereto. 



Chapter x., for its main subject, has the " Little-folk or Fairies, and 

 Mermen." The information has been collected con amove. The stone 

 arrows of the Dwarfs seem to be the connecting link with the 

 neolithic times just now alluded to. Boyd Dawkins' descriptive 

 sketch of a neolithic homestead, and Flinders Petrie's neolithic 

 intruders into Egypt about 5,000 years ago also find a place in this 

 chapter. 



In the two following chapters the author gives fuller remarks on 

 the Dwarfs, Little-folk, Troglodytes, Dwellers in caves and under- 

 ground. Goblins, Elves, and Fairies, all of whom originally, as well 

 as the Mermen, he regards as having belonged to the race of the 

 Finns, Lapps, and Esquimaux. To these Fairies or Dwarfs he 

 ascribes the building of Stonehenge. 



In connection with the indications of the important changes from 

 the use of implements of wood and stone to those of bronze and iron, 

 we would have liked to have seen our old acquaintance, cunning little 

 Jack the Giant-killer, brought in with his metal sword, superior to the 

 clubs of bigger and stupid men, although his history is far from being 

 equivalent to the clever stone-using Dwarfs fighting and annoying, if 

 not beating, men of metal. 



Regarding the antiquity of the human race, it is thought " very 

 probable that man originated at a somewhat early period in the great 

 Tertiary era of the world's history" (p. 128); but, being under the 

 the rule of evolution, and having his immediate ancestors among 

 the Primates, the geological horizon of those ancestors must 

 be taken as a limit before which he cannot have come upon 

 the stage. The gradational characters of the skulls from Spy, 

 Neanderthal, Naulette, etc., and the still lower type of the skull from 

 Java, prepare us for the " missing link," whether coming from 

 Pleistocene, Pliocene, or even Miocene strata. We have already 

 intimated that Mr. Oldham's attack on the accuracy of Dr. Noetling's 

 observations has not demolished the Burmese evidence ; and the 

 Javan skull still retains its semi-human, or even infra-human, status 

 according to several experts. 



In Part II., Mr. Hutchinson treats of Man of the Later Stone 

 Age (Neolithic), and the Bronze Age ; and herein he moves freely 

 among the published discoveries and descriptions of Lake-villages, 

 Pile-dwellings, and Crannogs, and the implements and other curiosi- 

 ties found in their remains; as well as in the tombs and burials of the 

 same kind of peoples. Some pile-structures in London (Pitt-Rivers) 



