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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XLIV. No. 1134 



But archeology — -"the research of ancient 

 civilization's — when the very foundations 

 of our own are threatened by the new bar- 

 barism! The investigation of the ruins of 

 the past — at the time when hell seems to 

 have been let loose to strew our continent 

 with havoc beyond the dreams of Attila ! 

 "The science of the spade" — at a moment 

 when that science confronts us at every 

 hour with another and a sterner signif- 

 icance ! The very suggestion of such a sub- 

 ject of discourse might seem replete with 

 cruel irony. 



And yet, especially as regards the pre- 

 historic side of archeology, something may 

 be said for a theme which, in the midst of 

 Armageddon, draws our minds from pres- 

 ent anxieties to that still, passionless do- 

 main of the past which lies behind the 

 limits even of historic controversies. The 

 science of antiquity as there seen in its pur- 

 est form depends, indeed, on evidence and 

 rests on principles indistinguishable from 

 those of the sister science of geology. Its 

 methods are stratigraphic. As in that case 

 the successive deposits and the character- 

 istic contents — often of the most frag- 

 mentary kind — enable the geologist to re- 

 construct the fauna and flora, the climate 

 and physical conditions, of the past ages of 

 the world, and to follow out their gradual 

 transitions or dislocations, so it is with the 

 archeologist in dealing with unwritten his- 

 tory. 



In recent years — not to speak of the 

 revelations of late Quaternary culture on 

 which I shall presently have occasion to 

 dwell — in Egypt, in Babylonia, in ancient 

 Persia, in the central Asian deserts, or, 

 coming nearer home, in the iEgean lands, 

 the patient exploration of early sites, in 

 many cases of huge stratified mounds, the 

 unearthing of buried buildings, the open- 

 ing of tombs, and the research of minor 

 relies, has reconstituted the successive 



stages of whole fabrics of former civiliza- 

 tion, the very existence of which was 

 formerly unsuspected. Even in later pe- 

 riods, archeology, as a dispassionate wit- 

 ness, has been continually checking, supple- 

 menting and illustrating written history. 

 It has called back to our upper air, as with 

 a magician's wand, shapes and conditions 

 that seemed to have been irrevocably lost in 

 the night of time. 



Thus evoked, moreover, the past is often 

 seen to hold a mirror to the future — cor- 

 recting wrong impressions — the result of 

 some temporary revolution in the whirligig 

 of time — by the more permanent standard 

 of abiding conditions, and affording in the 

 solid evidence of past well-being the "sub- 

 stance of things hoped for." Nowhere, in- 

 deed, has this been more in evidence than 

 in that vexed region between the Danube 

 and the Adriatic, to-day the home of the 

 Serbian race, to the antiquarian explora- 

 tion of which many of the earlier years of 

 my own life were devoted. 



What visions, indeed, do those investiga- 

 tions not recall! Imperial cities, once the 

 seats of wide administration and of prolific 

 mints, sunk to neglected villages, vestiges 

 of great engineering works, bridges, aque- 

 ducts, or here a main line of ancient high- 

 way hardly traceable even as a track across 

 the wilderness! Or, again, the signs of 

 medieval revival above the Roman ruins — 

 remains of once populous mining centers 

 scattered along the lone hillside, the shells 

 of stately churches with the effigies, bullet- 

 starred now, of royal founders, once cham- 

 pions of Christendom against the Paynim — 

 nay, the actual relics of great rulers, law- 

 givers, national heroes, still secreted in half- 

 ruined monastic retreats! 



Sunt lacrimw rerum et mentem mortalia tangunt: 

 Even the archeologist incurs more human 

 debts, and the evocation of the past carries 

 with it living responsibilities! 



