OCTOBER 27, 1898. ] 
same deposit and were the same age. It is 
the accepted conclusion on every hand that 
the bones and deposits belonged to the ter- 
tiary period; what particular epoch, I am 
not prepared to say. 
The dilemma presented by the discovery 
of Dr. Dubois in relation to the antiquity 
of man is that, if the bones are really those 
of a human individual, it carries the an- 
tiquity of the human species back to the 
tertiary period. If the individual is not 
human, because the deposit of the tertiary 
~ period is too early, then he must have been 
the precursor of man and, so the ‘ missing 
link.’ This dilemma must be recognized 
and the conclusion made harmonious. 
Darwin would have accepted this as a rep- 
resentative specimen of his ‘ missing link.’ 
De Mortillet was of opinion that the animal 
that chipped the flints of Thenay was not 
man, but his precursor, which he named 
‘Anthropopitheque,’ or ‘Anthropopithecus.’ 
Dr. Dubois has the same idea or theory 
with regard to the man of his discovery, 
and he has given it the name ‘ Pithecan- 
thropus erectus.’ The discussion over ter- 
tiary man or man’s precursor, remains in 
abeyance. Hach of the two parties holds 
to his respective opinions, pro and con, and 
the question awaits further developments. 
Neolithic and Bronze Ages Continuous. 
If there was a belief in an hiatus be- 
tween the Paleolithic and the Neolithic 
ages of Europe, there was no belief in an 
hiatus between the Neolithic period and 
the age of Bronze. It seems conceded that 
there was no appreciable difference in the 
races of people in western Europe in these 
two ages. It is also conceded that the 
stage of culture continued in both practi- 
cally the same; that all or most of the 
industries of the Neolithic period were 
continued into the Bronze age, subject, how- 
ever, to the natural improvement which 
came with added experience. The differ- 
- SCIENCE. 
597 
ence between the two ages, then, was the 
increased facility in performing the function 
of civilization by reason of having cutting 
implements of bronze instead of those of 
stone. The making of bronze was evidently 
a human invention and has little or nothing 
to do with a difference in race, nor beyond 
the benefit or improvement made by the 
invention, has it much to do with a change 
in culture. 
Copper was easily procured throughout 
Europe, and implements of that metal were 
made in neolithic times and doubtless con- 
tinued to be made in the Bronze age. But 
the advent of bronze was a totally different 
affair. Copper did not require casting ; it 
might have been hammered into the desired 
form and so made into implements, but the 
knowledge of melting and casting was in- 
dispensable to the age of Bronze. Bronze 
is a mixture of copper and tin in the pro- 
portion of eight or nine parts of the former 
to one of the latter. The question whence 
came the bronze which was so plentiful 
throughout Europe has always been one 
of the problems of prehistoric archeology. 
The tin necessary for making bronze ap- 
pears to have come from the country around 
the Straits of Malacca. The methods of 
its migration or transportation to Europe, 
whether the tin was brought over, whether 
it was melted, mixed with copper and then 
brought over, both being in the form of in- 
gots, or whether it was cast into implements 
and then distributed, are facts absolutely 
unknown, and they probably will always 
remain so. Prehistoric bronze objects have 
been found in southern Asia and through- 
out Europe. The excavations of Dr. Schlie- 
mann into the Hill of Hissarlik brovght 
many of them to light. Foundries have 
been discovered in most European coun- 
tries; in France nigh a hundred, the latest 
by Mons. Paul du Chatelier in Brittany. 
The most extensive one yet found was that 
at Bologna, Italy. It contained the metal 
