212 THE STONE AGE — PAST AND PRESENT. 



wliafc stone celts are, and liold witli so many other nations that 

 they are thunderbolts.^ 



In India, an account of the discovery by Mr. H. P. Le Me- 

 surier of a great number of ancient stone celts was published 

 in 1861. He found them stored up in villages of the Jubbul- 

 pore district, near the Mahadeos, and in other sacred places ; 

 and since then many more have been met with by other ob- 

 servers. ^ Mr. Christy's specimens are ordinary stone celts of 

 indifferent quality. 



In Europe, ancient stone implements are found from east to 

 west, and from north to south, the relics perhaps of races now 

 extinct, or absorbed in others^ or of the Tatar population of 

 Finland and Lapland, or of that unclassed race which survives 

 in the Basque population about the Pyrenees, who, unHke the 

 Finns and Lapps, cannot as yet claim relationship with a sur- 

 viving parent stock. 



As to our own Aryan or Indo-European race, our first know- 

 ledge of it, at the remote period of which a picture has been 

 reconstructed by the study of the Vedas, and a comparison of 

 the Sanskrit with other Aryan tongues, shows a Bronze Age 

 prevailing among them when they set out on theii' migrations 

 from Central Asia to found the Aiyan nations, the Indians, 

 Persians, Greeks, Germans, and the rest.^ A general view of 

 the succession of metal to stone all over the world, justifies a 

 belief that the Aiyans were no exception to the general rule, 

 and that they, too, used stone instruments before they had 

 metal ones ; but there is little known evidence bearing on the 

 matter beyond that of a few Aryan words, which are worth men- 

 tioning, though they wiU not carry much weight of argument. 



The nature of this evidence may be made clear, by noticing 

 how it comes into existence in places where the introduction of 

 metal is matter of history. In these places it sometimes hap- 



1 Yates, in ' Archaeological Jom-nal,' No. 42. Earl, ' Papuans,' pp. 175-6. 



2 Le Mesurier, in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, 1861, No. 1, p. 81. Theobald, 

 As. Soc, Apr. 1864, etc. etc. 



3 Weber, ' Indisehe Skizzen ;' Berlin, 1857, p. 9, Max Miiller, Lectures 

 second series, p. 230,etc. 



