THE LAPSE OF TIME. 105 



of giant stones upon broad-stretching plain or wild 

 moorland, from peat-moss and rail way- cutting and lime- 

 stone cavern, we obtain, as Sir John Lubbock and Mr. 

 Pengelly and others have so well shown, the unwritten 

 records of prehistoric man, of human beings unnoticed 

 in any credible history, and preceding all well-established 

 definite historical dates whether of sacred or profane 

 literature. Who reared the Titanic monuments of 

 Stonehenge and Abury we know not. We know not 

 who constructed the extraordinary animal-mounds of 

 Wisconsin in North America mounds hundreds of feet 

 long, reared a few feet above the level plains, in the 

 figures of men and beasts and birds and reptiles. These 

 monuments, if such they were intended to be, must 

 have demanded prodigious industry for their construc- 

 tion. They imply a considerable population, and some 

 advance in artistic skill. But why they were designed, 

 and who designed them, are circumstances alike un- 

 known. It is necessary to press home this argument 

 founded upon our ignorance, and to dwell upon it with 

 some emphasis, because numbers of persons are pleased 

 to imagine and assert that, within two or three thousand 

 years before the Christian era, the whole human popu- 

 lation of the globe was as it were still in the bud, and 

 that from a single family, not mustering a dozen mem- 

 bers to start with, all its tribes have since then been 

 derived, with their endless diversities of features, hair, 

 complexion, customs, tastes, and other qualities both of 

 mind and body. According to the old chronology we 

 are to suppose that within this limited space of time, 



