64 THE GEOLOGIST. 



The fine arts also reveal, witli tlie mtroduction of iron in Europe, 

 a new and important element indicating a striking advance already 

 in tlie stone-age, but more so in tlie bronze-age ; tlie natural taste for 

 art reveals itself in tbe ornaments bestowed upon pottery and 

 metallic objects. These ornaments consist of dots, circles, and zig- 

 zag, spiral, and S-shaped lines, the style bearing a geometrical cha- 

 racter, but showing pure taste and real beauty of its kind, although 

 devoid of all delineations of animated objects, either in the shape of 

 plants or animals. It is only with the Iron-age that art, taking a 

 higher range, rose to the representation of plants, animals, and even 

 of the human frame. No wonder, then, if idols of the Bronze-age 

 as well as of the Stone-age are wanting in Europe. It is to be pre- 

 sumed that the worship of fire, of the sun, and of the moon, was 

 prevalent in remote antiquity — at least during the Bronze-age, per- 

 haps also during the Stone-age. 



The proceeding pages constitute a sketch, certainly very rough and 

 imperfect, of the developments of civilization. They estabhsh, how- 

 ever, in a very striking manner the fact of a progress, slow, but 

 uninterrupted and immense, when the starting point is considered. 

 The physical constitution of man has naturally benefitted by it. The 

 details contained in the treatise of which the present paper forms the 

 introduction prove that the human race has been gTadually gaining 

 in vigour and strength since the remotest antiquity.* The domestic 

 races also — the dog first, then the horse, the ox, and the sheep have 

 shared in this physical development. Even the vegetable soil has 

 been gradually improving since the Stone-age — at least in Denmark. 

 And yet there are persons who deny all general progTess, seeing 

 everywhere nothing but decay and ruin, like that worthy specimen 

 of a Northern pessimist, who exclaitned — " See how man has 

 degenerated ; he has even lost liis likeness to the monkey !" 



* This agrees perfectly witli the testimony of statistics. See " Quetelet sur 

 rhoimiie et le developement de ses faciiltes." Pai-is, 1835, vol. ii., p. 271. This 

 work of first-rate Bierit is very neaa- akin to arcliEeology. M. Quetelet has just 

 published a new work, which will certainly be even more remarkable than the 

 first, and which the author of the present paper regrets not to have had within 

 his reach. 



