The Stone Period. 381 
on in the world; and it is probable that evidence may yet be forth- 
coming to prove, that degradation as well as development has hap- 
pened to the lower races beyond the range of direct history. The 
miserable “ Digger Indians” of North America, who lead a wan- 
dering life, lurking in holes and caves, slinking from the sight of 
other Indians, and subsisting chiefly on wild roots and fish, were 
not always in this deplorable condition ; for they are in part Shos- 
honees or Snake Indians, reduced to their present state of degrada- 
tion by their enemies the Blackfeet, who obtained guns from the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, overpowered the Snakes, took away their 
hunting-grounds, and compelled them to sink to their present 
culture-level, causing them to abandon certain arts which they 
practised in their more fortunate days. The culture-history of man- 
kind, however, is probably not the history of a course of degradation, 
or even of equal oscillations to and fro, but of a movement which, 
in spite of frequent pauses and relapses, has on the whole been for- 
ward ; and there appears to have been from age to age a growth in 
man’s power over nature, which no degrading influences have been 
able permanently to check. 
Primeval man appears to have possessed a mind capable of 
reasoning’, disposed to reason, and able to acquire, to accumulate, and 
to transmit knowledge, thus enabling each succeeding generation to 
start from a higher and still higher vantage-ground of accumulated 
knowledge. 
I confess that I am unable to trace any necessary connection 
between a mere babyhood in the practice of the industrial arts and 
a low state of moral culture, but upon this branch of the subject 
_ time will not allow me to enter. 
Neither can I touch upon another point, of great interest, the 
question of the Antiquity of Man. I have said that the Stone 
Period’ “affords us no measure of time,” neither does it of time 
positive; but in arriving at conclusions with regard to time relative 
the Stone, Bronze, and Iron Periods are as valuable to us as are the 
successive types of fish, reptile, and mammal, to the geologist. 
Discussion having been invited, Professor Rupert Jonzs, to whom 
a direct appeal was made, said it would be very difficult to add any- 
thing to Mr. Stevens’ extremely perfect elaboration of the subject, 
