ARCHEOLOGY AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, 97 



morphology of this series of coins were published ten years before 

 the appearance of Darwin's great work on the Origin of Species. 

 "When we come to the consideration of the relics of the early iron 

 and bronze ages the aid of chemistry has of necessity to be invoked. 

 By its means we are able to determine whether the iron of a tool or 

 weapon is of meteoritic or volcanic origin, or has been reduced 

 from iron ore, in which case considerable knowledge of metallurgy 

 would be involved on the part of those who made it. With bronze 

 antiquities the nature and extent of the alloys combined with the 

 copper may throw light not only on their chronological position but 

 on the sources whence the copper, tin, and other metals of which 

 they consist were originally derived. I am not aware of there being 

 sufficient differences in the analyses of the native copper from differ- 

 ent localities in the region in which we are assembled for Canadian 

 archaeologists to fix the sources from which the metal was obtained 

 which was used in the manufacture of the ancient tools and weapons 

 of copper that are occasionally discovered in this part of the globe. 

 Like chemistry, mineralogy and petrology may be called to the 

 assistance of archaeology in determining the nature and source of the 

 rocks of which ancient stone implements are made; and, thanks to 

 researches of the followers of those sciences, the old view that all 

 such implements formed of jade and found in Europe must of neces- 

 sity have been fashioned from material imported from Asia can no 

 longer be maintained. In one respect the archaeologist differs in 

 opinion from the mineralogist namely, as to the propriety of chip- 

 ping off fragments from perfect and highly finished specimens for 

 the purpose of submitting them to microscopic examination. 



I have hitherto been speaking of the aid that other sciences can 

 afford to archaeology when dealing with questions that come almost, 

 if not quite, within the fringe of history, and belong to times when 

 the surface of our earth presented much the same configuration as 

 regards the distribution of land and water and hill and valley as it 

 does at present, and when in all probability the climate was much 

 the same as it now is. "When, however, we come to discuss that 

 remote age in which we find the earliest traces that are at present 

 known of man's appearance upon earth the age of geology and 

 paleontology becomes absolutely imperative. The changes in the 

 surface configuration and in the extent of the land, especially in a 

 country like Britain, as well as the modifications of the fauna and 

 flora since those days, have been such that the archaeologist pure 

 and simple is incompetent to deal with them, and he must either 

 himself undertake the study of these other sciences or call experts 

 in them to his assistance. The evidence that man had already ap- 

 peared upon the earth is afforded by stone implements wrought by 



VOL. LII. 9 



