346 THE HUMAN SPECIES 



the Southern and Western races, with whom we know, from 

 the contents of their settlements, they were in close commercial 

 relationship. 



The discoveries relating to earlier times have shown that 

 in the following Metal Age (i.e., the Hallstatt period) the ob- 

 taining and bartering of salt was an important industry. As 

 at the present time, the salt was either excavated by miners, 

 as in the celebrated Salzberg on the Lake of Hallstatt, or it 

 was obtained by evaporating brine over a fire, as in the valley 

 of the Seille, and in a region of mid-Europe which extends 

 from Bohemia over South-West Germany as far as Alsace, 

 Burgundy and the Franche-Conte. Near many of these 

 brine wells hearths and clay supports have been found, over 

 which the brine overflowed when boiling, and then evaporating 

 on the hot brickwork left crystals of salt which can now be 

 scraped or knocked off. Seeing that at the present time most 

 bitter wars have been fought out between the desert tribes of 

 the Soudan for the possession of the salt deposits on the road 

 from Fezzan through Murzuk, we can easily imagine that 

 similar sanguinary battles were waged over the prehistoric 

 salt wells and salt mines. 



Sense of Beauty and Love of Ornament. Neither of these 

 can be absolutely predicated of animals, as is sometimes done 

 very illogically. The structure of the visual organs of animals 

 makes it self-evident, according to Schleich, that they possess the 

 power of appreciating and distinguishing colours. All animal 

 types in which, owing to sexual selection, the males are either 

 gorgeously coloured from the beginning, or else don a beautiful 

 marriage garment during the breeding season, must have a de- 

 finite sense of colour and of beauty ; otherwise this sexual pheno- 

 menon is inexplicable. One need but look at peacocks and 

 turkeys, and the rich colouring of the male butterflies, to see how 

 they display their adornments, or to read in the accounts of 

 travellers of the colonies of male birds of paradise which plume 

 themselves on the branches of the trees glittering in all the 

 colours of the rainbow. What other object can they have 

 than to excite the admiration of the female ? The desire to be 

 of a pleasing appearance is therefore not peculiar to man, but 

 is shared by other animals also. The endeavour to ornament 



