THE STONE AGE — PAST AND PESEENT. 207 



a glimpse^ is for tlie most part obscure. Tlie matter is, how- 

 ever, the more worthy of remark from its bearing on the argu- 

 ment for the connexion of the culture of Mexico and that of 

 Asia, grounded by Humboldt on the similarities in the mytho- 

 logy and the calendar of the two districts. 



If we now turn to the history of the Stone Age in Asia, 

 Africa, and Europe, we shall indeed find almost everywhere 

 evidence of a Stone Period, which preceded a Bronze or Iron 

 Period, but this is only to be had in small part from the direct 

 inspection of races living without metal implements. The 

 Kamchadals of north-eastern Asia, a race as yet ethnologically 

 isolated, were found by the Kosak invaders using cutting-tools 

 of stone and bone. It is recorded that with these instruments 

 it took them three years to hollow out a canoe, and one year 

 to scoop out one of the wooden troughs in which they cooked 

 their food ;^ but probably a large allowance for exaggeration 

 must be made in this story. It is curious to notice that, thirty 

 or forty years ago, Erman got in Kamchatka one of the Stone 

 Age relics found in such enormous numbers in Mexico, a fluted 

 prism of obsidian, ofi" which a succession of stone blades had 

 been flaked; but though one would have thought that the 

 comparatively recent use of stone instruments in the country 

 would have been still fresh in the memory of the people, the 

 natives who dug it up had no idea what it was.^ Stone knives, 

 moreover, have been found in the high north-east of Siberia, 

 on the site of deserted yourts of modern date, said to have 

 been occupied by the settled Chukchi, or Shalags.f 



In China, the foUowing curious passage seems to record a 

 comparatively modern use of stone implements. Referring to 

 Nan-hiu-fu, in the province of Kwan-tong, in Southern China, 

 it is stated, " They find, in the mountains and among the rocks 

 which surround it, a heavy stone, so hard that hatchets and 

 other cutting instruments are made from it."* It is to be 

 remembered that China is not inhabited only by the race 

 usually known to us as the Chinese, but by another, or several 



* Kracheninnikow, p. 29. ^ Erman, 'Eeise,' vol. iii. p. 453. 



3 Saryfcschew, in Coll. of Mod. etc., Voy. and Tr. ; London, 1807, vol. v. p. 35. 



< Grosier, ' De la Chine ;' Paris, 1818, vol. i. p. 191. 



