CHAP, xiv.] CONCLUSION. 497 



and the Neolithic, Bronze, and Prehistoric Iron ages in 

 central and northern Europe. 



We found Britain at the beginning of our enquiry- 

 part of a continent, without human inhabitants ; we 

 leave it at the end an island, with its inhabitants and 

 its condition to be dealt with by the historian. Each of 

 the changes recorded has left its mark in the Britain of 

 to-day, and so intimate is the continuity running through 

 all the events, that the Tertiary period must be extended 

 so as to embrace our own time. History takes up the 

 story of human progress at the point where it is dropped 

 by geology, archaeology, and ethnology, and carries it 

 on to the present day. 



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