646 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



We cannot trace the growth of the civilization of Egypt; we only know her 

 in her culmination and decline. She bursts forth like a meteor in the first pages 

 of history, or like a bride appareled for her nuptials. While numerous barbaric 

 tribes paid tribute to her power, they seem to have been influenced but little by 

 their contact with the higher life and refining customs of the Egyptians. 



So on the plains of Sodom we meet another phase of human development not 

 unlike, in some respects, that presented in the valley of the Nile. Here, too, 

 were numerous cities inhabited by a fixed people engaged in trade and manufac- 

 tures, of which Sodom seems to have been the most important. When Abraham, 

 the Hebrew (or immigrant, as the word means), fixed his home upon the uplands 

 adjacent to the plain upon which the city stood, he could gaze from the door of 

 his tent upon a scene of rare beauty, where, doubtless, as Croly says, 



" On pomp and spectacle beamed morning's glow, 

 On pomp and festival the twilight fell." 



It will be remembered that it is in connection with this city that we have 

 the first account of organized warfare. Now the point to be specially noted is 

 this : Among the tribes attacked by the confederated kings who came up against 

 Sodom, was one tribe known as Horites, who also often afterward appear in his- 

 tory. Now these Horites were veritable Troglodytes — cave-dwellers. Here, then, 

 we have the significant fact of a rude and primitive people living near, if not in 

 close proximity, to the sumptuous civilization of the cities of the plain, and still 

 preserving their ancient customs and modes of life. The same thing is taking place 

 before our eyes, in our own country, to-day. The red men are displaced, but 

 are not changed; they resist all our efforts for their civilization. 



It will be seen, by the foregoing considerations, with what caution the 

 archaeologist should pursue his investigations, and how easily he may be misled in 

 the conclusions he draws from the discovery of rude memorials which evidence 

 almost infantile skill, when found in companionship with relics which indicate a 

 high advancement of the industrial arts and social life; for it has sometimes 

 happened that, under the fascination of a new discovery, able and conscientious 

 men have been led by a temptation hard to resist, to lend the weight of their 

 names to too hasty generalizations. 



REV. S. D. PEET, CLINTON, WISCONSIN. 



To the same question, Rev. S. D. Peet replies as follows : 



Clinton, Wis., January 10, 1880. 



The archaeologists have not come to any definite conclusion on the point as to 

 the Stone, Bronze or Iron ages being successive, or synchronous. Many think that 

 they overlapped, and in large districts there is no doubt that the ages did over- 

 lap, though it is probable that in localities the stages of society, or the succession 

 of immigrating races, are marked by these distinctions. There is no gap between 

 the Iron age and the pre-historic Egyptians. In fact, it is difficult in ancient his- 



