312 FOSSIL MEN. 



might readily attract the attention of men everywhere. 

 Still further, the use and preparation of pigments and 

 dyes, of various kinds of medicinal herbs, of narcotics 

 and stimulants, of pyrite and flint and drills as means 

 of securing fire, are less obvious, but still not difficult 

 to be reached. The natural cave or leafy bower may 

 suggest a house or hut, and the means of constructing 

 it. The rudest savage may cross a river on a floating 

 log. Thought and invention lead him to hollow the 

 log into a canoe, or to construct a lighter and more 

 portable vessel of bark or hide, and in doing this he 

 has already mastered all the elements of the ship. 

 Clay may be moulded by a child into any form it 

 pleases; accident, observed and reasoned on, may 

 teach that it can be baked, and the art of the potter 

 arises. That such things have been done among all 

 races and in all times bespeaks not merely similar 

 resources, but the action on these of the same human 

 thought 5 and also that this must have been active at 

 a time so early that similar arts have branched into 

 all races of men, yet so modern that the time is 

 historically recent when many aboriginal arts were 

 universally practised in their most primitive forms. 



Indeed, when we consider the identity of the arts 

 of implement-making, fire-kindling, basket-making, 

 spinning and weaving, pottery, carving, and many 

 others; with special peculiarities, as in the boomerang, 

 the ornamentation of vessels, the special patterns of 

 harpoons, we can scarcely avoid the conclusion that 

 not only are all men of one origin, but that in early 



