SOME EARLY FORMS OF ART. 92 
oak and the wild strawberry and other natural fruits, and had not 
learnt the use of the plough or how to till the soil. 
In one of the grandest of Greek dramas—the Prometheus of 
Aeschylus, the hero is represented as bound to a rock because he 
defied Zeus and gave fire to mortals. Heis the symbol of progress. 
and the expansive mind. He teaches ignorant men the use of num- 
bers, writing, yoked steeds, knowledge of the stars, herbs and medi- 
cine, navigation and divination. He tells us how he stirred up men 
to reason and taught them how to think, how he brought them fire 
from heaven and instructed them in the arts. 
Previously —“ they did not know houses of brick that catch the 
* sunlight warmth, nor yet the work of carpentry—they dwelt in 
“hollowed holes like swarms of tiny ants, in sunless depths of 
“ caverns,” 
This passage,written 500 years B.C., exactly hits off the view of 
the modern up-to-date Anthropologist, as to the condition of man- 
kind and society in the earlier stone period. 
We may compare other caves such as Kent’s Hole, Torquay ; 
remains of the mammoth, rhinoceros, cavebear, and human beings 
are found together under a seal of stalagmite flooring, so formed and 
consolidated by water and lime, as to seal the contents of the treasure 
house and make it impossible to insert any article without disturbing 
the incrustations. 
Probably the oldest piece of fine art in the world is the figure 
of a mammoth carved on a piece of mammoth’s tusk, and accommo- 
dated to the shape of the piece on which it is carved, It was found 
in the cave of La Madeleine Dordogne under a solid floor of flints 
and rubbish, which has been consolidated and petrified into stalag- 
mite, and can be seen in the British Museum. 
For the purpose of illustration and comparison, I have given 
