CHAP L] GEOLOGY, ARCHEOLOGY, AND HISTORY. 3 



discovered living under conditions wholly unlike those 

 which are now experienced in this country, under a 

 different climate and a different geography, and sur- 

 rounded by wild animals, for the most part unlike 

 any now to be found in Europe. 



The Continuity betiveen these three Sciences. 



The continuity between geology, prehistoric archaeo- 

 logy, and history is so direct that it is impossible to pic- 

 ture early man in this country without using the results 

 of all these three sciences. The history of the earth is 

 necessary to the history of man, if a broad view be 

 taken instead of a narrow specialism flowing from the 

 tendency of the age towards minuteness of detail. In 

 the earliest records the inhabitants of this country, about 

 two thousand years ago, are represented as being similar 

 in their habits and modes of life to their neighbours in 

 Gaul, and we gather from Caesar's Commentaries and 

 the Agricola of Tacitus that they were composed of the 

 same Belgic, Celtic, and Iberic tribes, in the stage 

 of culture marked by the use of iron, foes by 

 no means despicable to the Eoman legions. The 

 accounts, however, which have been handed down 

 to us have been written merely from a military point 

 of view, and from them we learn very little of the 

 life, of the arts and habitations of the Britons of those 

 times, and still less of the condition of the country, of 

 the extent of forest and morass, and of the wild animals 

 which they sheltered. On all these points modern dis- 

 coveries draw aside the veil, and we can form almost as 

 clear an idea of the inhabitants before the landing of 

 Julius Caesar, and of their internal and external relations, 



