LOST ARTS OP PRIMITIVE RACES. 175 



time necessary to effect such, results. Already, in 

 some districts of America, the Indian has so lost the 

 tradition of the arts of his ancestors, that when 

 questioned as to their implements, he says the Great 

 Spirit alone knows by whom and for what they were 

 made.* 



Thus, even if we confine our attention to the one 

 subject of lost arts, it can be shown that changes, 

 many of them tending rather to degradation than to 

 elevation, have taken place in America since its dis- 

 covery, which are comparable in amount with those 

 extending in Europe from the Palaeolithic age to the 

 present day. That they occurred as rapidly in Europe 

 I do not affirm, yet there is no good reason to doubt 

 that many of those diversities to which vast periods 

 have been assigned, were either not successive, or 

 required for their production times not much greater 

 than that which has elapsed since the voyages of 

 Columbus. It may be asked, If this is so, what 

 reliance can be placed on archaeological investiga- 

 tions ? I answer : Much, if observers will carefully 

 study facts, and compare them with their modern 

 analogues, and will avoid hasty generalisations, and 

 the common error of making the facts conform to 

 preconceived hypotheses. Geologists require also to 

 learn that the methods which apply to the succession 

 of formations, in which we have to do only with 



* An interesting discussion of this subject will be found in 

 Tylor's "Researches into the Early History of Mankind," 

 Chapter VIII. 



