824 COLIK CLOUT'S CALENDAR. 



objects which look like weapons, found underground, 

 are popularly known as thunderbolts. In districts 

 where big species of belemnites the bones of a fossil 

 cuttle-fish occur in any numbers, these lance-like pet- 

 rifications receive that name. But all over England, 

 France, Norway, Sweden, Germany, Holland, and Italy, 

 the polished stone axes of the Enskariau aborigines are 

 also known as thunderbolts, and believed to have fallen 

 from the sky. Even in countries where the Stone Age 

 has lasted till a recent period the hatchets are already 

 regarded in this light, and viewed with superstitious rev- 

 erence accordingly. The Jamaican negroes thus re- 

 gard the beautiful greenstone axes of the old Caribs ; 

 and the Canadian farmers give the same name to the 

 finished weapons of the Hurons and the Objibways. In 

 Japan, Java, Burmah, and West Africa the selfsame 

 belief holds good. Everywhere the stone axe becomes a 

 thunderbolt in the popular estimation. 



"When the old Teutonic and Scandinavian hordes sep- 

 arated from their Aryan ancestors in Central Asia, they 

 carried away with them to their new homes in the forests 

 of Germany or by the shores of the Baltic the primitive 

 religion of the Aryan race. But the great sky-god of the 

 Aryans, the Sanskrit Dyaus, the Greek Zeus, the 

 Eoman Jupiter, whose main function it was to wield 

 the lightnings and gather the clouds, became known and 

 remembered among the Teutonic races as Thunder only. 

 His Anglo-Saxon name of Thunor from which comes 

 our thunder is in High German Donner, and in Scan- 

 dinavian Thor. But the position of his sacred day in 

 the order of the week shows his identity with Zeus ; for 

 Thursday, originally Thunres dceg, answers of course to 

 Jovis dies or Jeudi. Among the Teutons, however, 

 Thunor or Thor is always armed with a hammer ; and 



