Primitive Man. 63 



or " stone tables " as the word implies, abound especially in 

 the plains of Brittany, in central France, and in the region 

 of the Pyrenees. Isolated upright stones, mostly of enor- 

 mous size, and known as menhirs, occurring sometimes 

 singly, at other times in rows, are equally abundant, 

 notably those at Carnac in France, which extended a dis- 

 tance of a mile, and number, in all, eleven thousand, dis- 

 posed in eleven rows. A single specimen measures twenty 

 yards in length, by two in average width, and another 

 rises to the extraordinary height of thirty feet above the 

 ground, being imbedded fifteen below it. Covered dolmens 

 were, quite exclusively, appropriated to purposes of burial ; 

 exposed dolmens and menhirs commonly to religious 

 observances and sacrifices. 



How these huge masses of stone were got together and 

 raised is as much of a mystery as the piling of the Pyra- 

 mids. Objects of both stone and metal have been discovered 

 in the burial mounds, indicating that they are to be attrib- 

 uted to a period bordering on the close of the stone and 

 opening of the bronze periods. 



Who were the dolmen builders is another debated point 

 in prehistoric archaeology. By some they are supposed to have 

 been the Kelts ; by others, a race prior to the latter, whom 

 they supplanted. That these structures are not Druidic, and 

 that the Druids belong to a period far subsequent, is generally 

 conceded, but scientists are at variance not only upon the 

 question as to who built them, but also on the question 

 whether they are the constructions of any special race, or 

 whether ditferent races may not have independently reached, 

 or passed through a dolmen and tumulus building epoch. 



That America, no less than Europe, was the the habitat 

 of races as primeval as the palaeolithic man of Europe, has 

 been fully established. At New Orleans a complete skele- 

 ton has been discovered, buried beneath four successive for- 

 ests, and an age of 57,000 years has been assigned to the 

 remains. Agassiz came upon human remains in the con- 

 glomerate of a Florida reef, which he assertec\ to have been 

 deposited exceeding 10,000 years ago. The caves of Brazil 

 have yielded, as in Europe, numerous bones of man im- 

 bedded with those of fossil animals. The implements dis- 

 covered are the same, subserving similar purposes, although, 

 as has been stated, more frequently chipped from obsidian, 

 jade or porphyry. Likewise we find in Central America, 



