848 Recent Literature. [August, 
RECENT LITERATURE. 
oLy’s MAN BEFORE Merats.'—The author’s aim in publishing 
this book has been, as he says, to bring before the reader the 
numerous proofs hitherto collected of the great age of the human 
race, as well as to treat of the customs, the industry as well as 
the moral and religious ideas of man, such as he was before the 
use of metals was known to him, and in conclusion to briefly 
sketch the possible appearance of this being. While the work is 
by no means to be ranked with those of Lyell, Tylor, Lubbock, 
Wilson, Dawkins and others, it may be read with interest because 
written by a Frenchman, for it will be remembered that French- 
men such as Boucher de Perthes, Broca and others, were the pio- 
neers in modern inquiries into the antiquity of the human race. 
The author is mainly expository, at times critical, at other times 
strangely credulous and too much disposed to quotations. The 
chapter on early man in America is the least valuable in the book, 
and strangely obsolete. For example, though apparently written 
in 1882, at least published in 1883, no mention is made of the 
records of early man in California, or in the river gravels of New 
Jersey. On the other hand as proofs of the antiquity of man in 
the United States, we are treated once more to the statements of Dr. 
Dowler regarding the New Orleans skeleton, to the very question- 
able Natchez pelvis, which may have been washed out of a recent 
Indian cemetery; also to the oft-quoted misstatement regarding 
the human bones “extracted by Agassiz” from a calcareous con- 
glomerate which forms part of a coral reef in Florida,” etë. 
strange want of familiarity with recent American archæological 
literature is shown. Reference on p. 163 is made to “ the recent 
discovery of a human skull picked up at Jacksonville, on e 
banks of the Illinois, one hundred feet above the present level of 
the river, and remarkable, like that of Neanderthal,” etc. 4S 
statement we presume refers to the calvarium dug out by the late 
Professor Wyman from the shell-heaps of Jacksonville Florida. — 
On the other hand the account of the French caves and Swiss 
lake dwellers is excellent, and the figures, which we here pitt 
duce, will elucidate the subject. It appears that the lake dwell- 
ers were in Switzerland preceded by dwellers in caves who date 
from the Palzolithic period. Kel- 
e author appears to adopt Worsaés’ opinion, shared by 
ler, Desor and Virchow, that the Neolithic lake dwellers were of 
Keltic origin. 
The chapter on antediluvian art, particularly that of the phe’ 
lithic cave dwellers, is well prepared and illustrated, as will be 
seen by the accompanying illustrations selected from this aport 
The author does not go to extremes, either in his views as 
Ti 
1 The International Scientific Series. Man before Metais. By N. JoLY. w 
148 illustrations. New York, D, Appleton & Co., 1883. 12m0, pp. 385. 
Be 
