26 Perry, Megalithic Monuments and Ancient Mines. 



imagination is surely struck most forcibly by the thought 

 of these Ancient Mariners sailing to India, then to. the 

 East Indian Archipelago, and thence right out across the 

 Pacific by way of the Carolines, Solomons, New Hebrides, 

 Fiji and Easter Island to the coast of America, there to 

 discover immense stores of all kinds of wealth, gold, 

 silver, pearls, and precious stones, and to settle down as 

 kings and over-lords, using their immense cultural 

 superiority to transform the indigenous cultures and to 

 found there the civilisations which have long been the 

 wonder and admiration of mankind. 40 



This wandering in the search for wealth is a remark- 

 able thing, and it has been the great civilising factor : it 

 is that which has caused the step from savagery upwards 

 to have taken place in many parts of the earth. For good 

 or evil, once it began, mankind was bound to gain in 

 knowledge, experience and wealth. When the details 

 are available it will be possible to make the picture com- 

 plete. At present we have the bare outlines. But none 

 the less the facts have grouped themselves so as to make 

 the nature of the picture evident. They also enable us to 

 state what appears to have been the most important form 

 of wealth for which the megalithic people sought. It was 

 gold. The search for that substance would seem to have 

 attracted those for whom it had great value to immense 



40 The Greek colonisation of Spain was also determined by similar 

 motives. " Qu'allaient faire les Grecs dans ces regions d"acces difficile? 

 Si Ton cherche a repondre a cette question, on ne pent pas ne pas attribuer 

 une signification a ce fait que les traditions qui parlent des plus anciens 

 etablissements grecs, les placent dans les regions metaliferes ; ansi la ville 

 d'Ulysse est pres des mines les plus riches en argent ; parmi les colonisations 

 du Nord-Ouestj Ocela (Ocelum dc Ptolemee) se trouve pres de Zamora. 

 precisement dans un des centres principaux des gisements d'etain en filons 

 et en alluvoins le lung du Douro ; c'est aux riverains tie celui-ci que Stralon 

 attrihue de.s moeurs lacedemoniennes, et aux peuples de Nord-Ouest riche 

 en mines d'etain et d'or les differents coutumes grecques que nous avons 

 signalees.' (Siret. 19. p. 158.) 



