TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTED ARTICLES, 25r 
Christian era. For that part of Europe situated north of the Alps, 
the historical epoch hardly opens before the Roman invasion, that 
is to say, about the commencement of the Christian era. We 
have some historical data and certain traditions going back some- 
what more remotely, but they have no great importance, with regard 
to the investigations which we propose to make, and we shall 
eliminate them. 
It is, then, these ante-traditional and ante-historic times, these 
which we designate under the name of Remote Antiquity, ( Haute 
Antiquité), and which we are to make now the object of our study; 
thus, in considering only Northern Europe to the Alps, and in stop- 
ping towards the commencement of the Cristian Era, our task is 
thus clearly limited, a fact which we must not lose sight of. 
Since the recollections of this long epoch are almost effaced, we 
musi seek another kind of material to re-construct the past. We 
find ourselves here in precisely the same position as the Geologist 
who re-establishes the history of our globe; from him we will borrow 
his method, and our course will present necessarily much analogy to 
his. 
The chief materials of the Geologist are, the remains of the ani- 
mal and vegetable creation; that is to say, petrifactions or fossils 
buried in the strata which form, in a great part, the mass of a con- 
tinent. 
Instead of fossils, we have the productions of art and industry, 
which are to us ag &@ mirror in which is reflected the image of man, 
his life and his entire civilization ; for, by his work, we recognise the 
workman. If froma bone the geologist is able to draw the com- 
plete animal, to which the piece once belonged, we can also as well 
with a single broken piece of pottery, reform the complete vase, and 
from the vase infer the maker. There is no extreme interval 
between a fragment of pottery and a human being, for everything 
holds together, everything is enchained in human economy, as 
everywhere in the reign of nature. The primitive inhabitant of our 
country has long ago disappeared, his mortal remains have returned 
to dust, his heroic narratives are forgotten, as well as his songs of 
love; the name even of the people—of the race lost; but the work 
of his hands still remains, and permits us tu resuscitate our ancestors, 
to see how they lived and how they acted, to be present at their re- 
pasts, toexamine their domestic industry, to recognize their cam= 
