12 RELIQUIAE AQUITAJSTIC^E. 



the central plateau of the Atlas-ranges, and on their northern and southern 

 slopes, and southward at the Cape of Good Hope. In America its existence is 

 recognized throughout the whole of the northern continent in its length and 

 hreadth, from Behring's Straits to the Mexican plateau, and from Western 

 Columbia to the Atlantic shores. In the southern continent it extends from 

 the Cordillera of Peru to Tierra del Fuego, and is met with in the islands of 

 the West Indies, the lowlands of the Amazon and the Orinoko, and the forest 

 fastnesses of Brazil. 



Even yet more widely spread in point of time are these mute but indisputable 

 witnesses of man's presence. 



To this day the Stone-age lingers on among some of the inhabitants of the shores of 

 the Polar Sea, both in Asia and America, and among the Indians of California and of 

 the Hocky Mountains, the natives of New Caledonia and of the Andaman Islands, 

 and some Australian tribes. Not a century has elapsed since the great majority 

 of the Islanders of the Pacific first acquired, by contact with the outer world, an 

 acquaintance with metals. Nor have four centuries elapsed since the discoverers 

 of America found the inhabitants of the New World, with some slight exception 

 with regard to copper and bronze, totally unacquainted with the use of metal 

 implements. 



In the Old World, on the other hand, it is widely different. There, in Europe, 

 in Northern Africa, and throughout the continent of Asia, except at its north- 

 eastern extremity, with one single exception mentioned by Herodotus, history 

 and tradition are alike silent as to Implements of Stone*. In this field of 

 research, therefore, the antiquity of the objects in question must be determined 

 by surrounding circumstances. 



Three Prehistoric Periods of the Stone-age. Subject to many exceptions, the 

 prehistoric implements may be grouped into three great divisions namely, those 

 of the Surface, the Cave, and the Drift. In the most recent of these, the Surface- 

 period, where the implements are most commonly found in association with the 

 battle-field or the sepulchre, the work of assigning the relative age lies chiefly 

 with the archa3ologist ; and this is to be determined by their types, the presence of 

 other industrial products, or the circumstances under which they are found, though 

 occasionally the associated animal remains give some clue to their antiquity. 



* The indications of Stone Knives having been in use among the Hebrews, as supported by the Septuagint 

 version of 'Exodus,' iv. 25, and ' Joshua,' v. 2, and by a Septuagint interpolation in 'Joshua,' xxiv., are 

 fully treated of in Mr. E. B. Tylor's ' Early History of Mankind,' &c., pp. 214 et seq. ED. 



