346 On the Two earliest known Races of Men. . {July, 
their flocks and herds than upon the chase. They were more pas- 
toral than the previous Neolithic inhabitants of the district. 
The date of the introduction of iron into Western Europe cannot 
be satisfactorily determined. Its use had, however, spread through 
France, Britain, and Germany before the inhabitants of those coun- 
tries came into collision with the Roman legions. The iron-using 
people of Gaul were sufficiently civilized and provided with weapons 
to be a formidable enemy to Rome in the height of her power, to 
oppose her disciplined troops in the field with chariots and cavalry, 
and on the sea to fight for a whole day with the Roman fleet off the 
coast of Armorica. In Britain and in Switzerland they also used 
chariots. The pages of Caesar and Tacitus will give an adequate 
account of their civilization and habits. 
In a review such as this of our Pre-historic ancestors, we must 
bear in mind that the absolute age of any one of the races is 
altogether a matter for conjecture. We can simply say that stone 
preceded bronze, and the latter iron, while we are ignorant of the 
length of time during which each of these materials was m_ use, as 
we are also of the method of its introduction, whether sudden or 
gradual. In this point, indeed, History differs from Archeology, 
that it gives the absolute, while the latter gives the relative date. 
In these pages we have traced man from his earliest appearance 
on the earth down to the borders of history, and we have seen how, 
as he grew older, he profited by his experience, and slowly widened 
the chasm between himself and the brutes, by making his life more 
and more artificial. From the past it is impossible not to turn to the 
future and ask ourselves, whether there be any limit to the progress of 
the human race? Has man yet attained his full manhood? In the 
ages that are coming, will he not continue to win fresh victories 
over nature and her forces, each of which victories will form the 
basis for another ? and as the fetters which bind him to the brutes 
are broken one by one, will he not grow more and more godlike, 
until the brutal portion of his nature be altogether swallowed up 
by the spiritual? Such an augury as this is warranted by a con- 
sideration of the past, by the study of History and of Archeology, 
and of the course of nature written in the great stone-book on 
which we live. 
EXPLANATION OF PLATE. 
wigs. 1 & 2, Arrow-head of chert, from Wookey Hole. 
Fig. 3. Fishing-spear (?) of reindeer-horn, from the cave of Moustier. 
. Barbed bone in use at pres-nt by the Esquimaux of Igloolik, for compari- 
son with Fig. 3. 
. Bone needle in use by the Reindeer Folk. 
. Bone needle in use by the Esquimaux of Igloolik, for comparison with Fig. 5 
. Sculptured figure of a horned Ruminant on a fragment of Reindeer antler 
from Laugerie-basse. 
. Sculptured figure of the Mammoth on a fragment of ivory belonging to 
that animal, from the rock-shelter of La Madelaine. 
iva) “IDO 0 
