NATURAL HISTORY MISCELLANY. 273 
years. Thus Paleontology fades into Archeology, or the study of 
ancient or prehistoric man; and Archeology graduates into History, 
Though the subject is still in a crude state, the conclusions here 
resented result from the careful observation of facts, now generally 
prehistoric man have been most carefully studied, they have been 
considered to characterize three periods, or ages, namely: first, the 
Stone age, when stone viet not metals, was used in the construction 
of implements ; second, the Bronze aes characterized by a higher 
style of art, and the use 2 implements made for the sis part of 
bronze; and third, the Iron age, sY such implements of the chase, 
of war, and domestic life, were constructed largely of iron. Each 
period is a step towards a higher civilization. From being a simple 
Savage, living singly or in small tribes, without organization, and 
scarcely able to hold his own against the gigantic wild beasts of those 
his relations our ideal man, caedere the human species as a whole, 
shows a constant progress up 
Races of gigantic tenfa dg uef as the Megatherium. oth, 
and Mastodon, two species of Rhinoceros, the Cave Bear, Lion, Irish 
Elk, a large species of Beaver, and the Aurochs, a passed away be- 
fore his attacks. The rudiments of the art of sc taingan and printing 
appear at a distinct period, the domestic animals are d, the 
cereals and implements for converting them into ee appear, some- 
thing like national unity binds together haries of savage men, when 
History lifts the veil. Doai this long period of more than Cimme- 
rian darkness, the surface of the earth had so great changes. 
climate of northern Europe and America was much like that of 
Greenland at the present day, though the extremes of the climate 
could not have been so great, it seems to us, as generally stated by. 
European writers. All our rivers ran in much deeper channels, while 
paa estuaries. and chains of lakes covered what are now fertile 
Plains and intervals, dotted with towns and villages. It is safe to 
say, that man lived as long ago as the Terrace or Lake Period of ge- 
ologists, on which the Glacial Epoch overlapped. 
In an interesting article in the London “Quarterly Journal of Sci- 
ence,” by W. B. Hawkins, “On the Habits and Condition of the Two 
AMERICAN NAT., VOL. I. 
