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position of power over the lower animals, we are nevertheless j ustified in sup- 

 posing that these early men were greatly limited in number, and were living in a 

 state of much degradation and barbarism. We may conclude, therefore, that 

 nothing was done by people in such a condition to modify, in any material degree, 

 the physical character of the country they inhabited, or which was calculated 

 to subvert or even materially to affect the balance then existing amongst the 

 various forms of contemporary organic life. 



In the next age (the Neolithic) a great advance was made, for we find, 

 (at all events during the later periods of this age), that man must have increased 

 largely in numbers, and have made considerable strides in civilization. The 

 principal monuments of the polished stone age in Europe are "Tumuli" or 

 ancient burial mounds, the " Lake dwellings " of Switzerland, and the " Shell 

 mounds " of Denmark, each of which is characterized by peculiarities which 

 can only be glanced at here. 



There are also other remains of great interest which have been investi- 

 gated by archaeologists, such as the ancient " castles " and " camps " which crown 

 so many of the hills in England ; the great lines of embankment which cross 

 many of the downs ; the so-called Druidical circles, and the vestiges of apparently 

 contemporary habitations, and the " Hut circles " and " Picts' houses " found in 

 various places, but it is not my purpose to do more than refer to them. 



With regard to the Tumuli, Mr. Lubbock tells us as follows : — " All over 

 Europe wherever they have not been destroyed by the plough or the hammer, 

 we find relics of prehistoric times, such as camps, fortifications, dykes, temples, 

 tumuli, etc., many of which astonish us by their magnitude, while all of them 

 excite our interest by the antiquity of which they remind us, and the mystery 

 by which they are surrounded. Some few indeed, there are, such, for instance, 

 as the Roman Wall in England, the Dannevirke, and Queen Thyra's tumulus, 

 in Denmark, of which the date and origin are known to us, but by far the 

 greater number, such as the Wansdyke, the ' temple ' of Carnac in Brittany, 

 the tumuli supposed to be those of Thor, Odin, and Freya at Upsala, and the 

 great tumuli near Drogheda, are entirely prehistoric. Some of them doubtless, 

 belong to the metallic period, some to that of stone, but it very rarely happens 

 that we can attribute any of them, with reasonable probability, to one period 

 rather than to another. This is particularly the case with ancient earthworks 

 and megalithic temples or circles. The barrows, or Lows, on the other hand, 

 frequently contain objects from which some idea of relative antiquity may be 

 obtained. These ancient burial mounds, of which several typical examples are 

 represented, are extremely numerous. In our own island they may be seen on 

 almost every down ; in the Orkneys alone it is estimated that more than two 

 thousand remain ; and in Denmark they are even more abundant ; they are 

 found all over Europe, from the shores of the Atlantic to the Oural mountains; 

 in Asia they are scattered over the great steppes, from the borders of Russia 

 to the Pacific Ocean, and from the plains of Siberia to those of Hindostan ; in 

 America we are told that they are to be numbered by thousands and tens of 

 thousands, nor are they wanting in Africa, where the Pyramids themselves 

 exhibit the most magnificent development of the same idea ; so that the whole 

 world is studded with these burial places of the dead. The Cromlechs, Dol- 

 mens, Cistvaens, are now generally regarded as sepulchral, and the great number 

 in which these ancient burial places occur is very suggestive of their antiquity, 

 since the labour involved in the construction of a tumulus would not be under- 

 taken except in honour of chiefs and great men. Many of them are small, but 

 some are very large ; Silbury Hill, the highest in Great Britain, has a height 

 of one hundred and seventy feet ; but though evidently artificial,, there is 

 great doubt whether it is sepulchral. 



" Mr. Bateman, in the Preface to his second work, has collected together 



