TRANSLATIONS AND SELECTED ARTICLES, 259 
strata, one stratum deposited on ancther being necessarily the most 
recent of the two. ‘The antiquary has seldom a regular series supcrim- 
posed like the strata of the geologist. It would be more often the case 
if we could examine the deposits which are formed at tlie bottom of 
lakes and scas. But in that case the geologist would have had the 
precedence, and would have traced the history of human kind so as to 
leave very little to glean after him. ‘The materials of the antiquary are 
ordinarily all hidden in.a thin layer of vegetable earth, and even this is 
sometimes wauting. There are, however, cases of superposition of de- 
posits of human traces on dry ground ; they are of great value, for they 
establish better and more surely than !n any other manner the chronolo- 
gical order of succession of the different epochs. Thus all distinction 
of ages ought to be capable of being referred to direct observations of 
superposition of layers or deposits which would correspond to these 
ages. We have seen how the savans of the north arrived at their 
three ages of stone, of bronze, and of iron. Their result is without doubt 
very beautiful and. satisfactory ; but they have obtained it by a rather 
indirect way, and thus it is sometimes still contested. Here is one of these 
observations, since there is need of such to decide the question 
definitively. At Waldhausen, near Lubeck, existed one of these 
ancient tombs in the form of a hillock, or barrow, of 13 feet in 
height by 161 in circumference. It was examined by entirely level- 
ling it. Under the summit was discovered a tomb of the age of iron, 
but very ancient, according to all appearance ante-historical. There was 
a skeleton in the mere ground, with fragments of coarse pottery, and 
a piece of iron eaten with rust. Lower down, about mid-way, three 
graves of the age of bronze presented themselves. They were small 
recesses in dry walls, containing each a cinerary urn filled with the 
remains of calcined bones, to which were added different objects in 
bronze, such as necklaces, hair pins, and a knife. At last at the base 
of the hillock was atomb of the age of stone, formed with great 
rough blocks, and enclosing among other things coarse pottery 
and flint axes. Evidently the first inhabitants of the country had 
constructed, on the flat and natural soil, a tomb, according to the 
ard other precious things which this old Pass-all had determined to carry at last 
to the grave with him. And, also, there lay around numerous skeletons of the 
poor slaves who were, to the number of cne hundied, killed when the king died, that 
his ebony kingship might not pass into the other world withont duc attendance.” 
—Enxplorations and Wanderings m Equatoriai Africu, by Paui B. DuChaillu, 
1863 ; chapter xii. 
