a. One of the lowest rounds in the ladder which conducts to the platform of civilization is that occupied by the Digger Indian, found among the Rocky Mountains on the way to California. By the assistance of a few twigs, he gathers the seed of a particular kind of grass, and pounds it for food, as more advanced nations grind corn. His home is a natural cave, or an artificial structure scarcely more pretentious than that erected by the gorilla in Equatorial Africa. The native of the interior of Australia occupies nearly the same rank. He pounds the "nardoo" seed for food, or devours raw shell fish found on the border of a lake; and avails himself of almost every portion of the carcass of bird or beast that falls into his possession living or dead.* A recent writert thus describes the inhabitants of the Cape York Peninsula, in the same great country. "They subsist on fish, turtle, roots, "fruits, &c.; have no knowledge of agriculture; never build "huts, but sleep in the open air; have strong migratory propensities; and apparently a total disbelief in a Superior Being or God of any sort; characters which give them a "claim to be regarded as among the lowest and most degraded "of the human race."

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b. The inhabitants of Western Africa are more advanced. They point their spears with bone, and like the New Zealanders of thirty years ago, they manufacture bone fish hooks. A shell serves for a spoon, or occasionally for a knife or a cup; and a section from a circular bone is easily scraped into a ring or a bracelet. But even in Cornwall, bone implements were in use till lately, for the purpose of getting bark off trees.‡ The resources of primitive people are sometimes surprising to those who are accustomed to have every thing ready to hand. It is said that some English sailors left a bottle on the coast of Patagonia, and that when they returned shortly after, they found it broken up, and the natives employed in making spear points and arrow heads out of the fragments.

c. Herodotus mentions that certain tribes came into battle, with spears and lances tipped with bone and stone.§ Though * Burke and His Companions: the Victorian Exploring Expedition ;-Melbourne, 1861.

+ Dr. Rattray, R.N., Proceedings of the Royal Geographical Society, xii, 313. E. T. Stevens, Esq., at Congress of Prehistoric Archæology.

§"The Ethiopians used heades of a harde sharpe stone, as both Herodotus "and Pollux do tel. The Germanes as Cornelius Tacitus doeth saye, had theyr "shaftes headed with bone, and many countryes bothe of olde tyme and nowe yse heades of horne."-Roger Ascham's Toxophilus,

many of the Patagonians possess metallic implements procured in barter, the nomadic tribes are said to be still addicted to the use of stone implements. The Fuegians and the inhabitants of the Andaman islands are still in the stone period; and the Greenlanders used implements of bone and stone till wood and iron were introduced from Denmark. Also, there are people still alive within whose memory New Zealand did not possess metal, the most elaborate carvings* being executed by chisels of greenstone or some other hard material. These are now rare, hundreds having been picked up as curiosities, and for public and private museums, since the introduction of metal. Perhaps the process of engraving upon stone with implements of the same material, is still more curious than that of engraving upon wood. Yet it has been ascertained by the Rev. W. F. Holland,† that the rock inscriptions in the peninsula of Sinai, were almost all engraved with stones. Much of the chiselling also, of great stones found in Denmark and Switzerland, was performed by flint implements of what has been called the neolithic period. Stone implements are used to this day, for the purpose of working in stone, by the inhabitants of Tahiti.‡

d. Probably there is no country at the present day, whose people are restricted to implements of bronze or any other alloy of copper. Yet we learn from history that such was the case in Homeric times; and we know that some of the North American Indians, till very recently, found that metal more abundant and more easily worked than iron. Many evidences show that stone implements were still in use during the age of Bronze.

e. The use of iron exists in two states. In the lower, it is in use, but procured as an article of commerce; and this remark applies to nearly the whole of Africa and to much of Asia. The ruder people struggle to obtain knives, nails, hoops, pincers, &c., and the more intelligent to secure manufactured implements and tools ready for use.

f. In the countries of greatest advancement, iron is manufactured; and in the various processes connected with steel, its value is increased many fold.

* Ancient Meols, 208, 208 n., 210 n.

+ Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. xii, p. 192.

Sir John Lubbock, Bart., Sir James Simpson, Professor Huxley, H. M, Westhrop, Esq., F.S.A., &c.

It is on the principles thus laid down, that I look for the illustration of British Antiquities in South America. Certain countries which were visited some months ago, are in social grade at present what England has been; and therefore we are surprised and gratified at seeing to-day the implements and operations which were familiar to our ancestors, many generations or even centuries ago.*

II. OPERATIONS IN NATURE.

It was in connexion with this subject, that the whole of this and a preceding Essay had their origin. Certain statements of mine respecting (1) the "Submarine Forest," on the coasts of Lancashire and Cheshire, (2) the subterranean forest connected with it, extending over many square miles, and (3) the mode of deposit of the objects of antiquity, were called in question; and an attempt was made to bring my assertions into discredit by a corrupted quotation from Leland's Itinerary. This I detected and made known; but I did not and do not attribute intentional wrong to any one. In this case, however, good faith can be defended only at the expense of intellectual capabilities.

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That I may not interrupt the continuity of my remarks, I

* While these pages are passing through the press, a most curious illustration of this principle is brought to light. Dr. Hooker in his Address to the British Association for the Advancement of Science, at Norwich, 19th August, 1868, stated that "within three hundred miles of the British capital of India, exists a "tribe of semi-savages, which habitually erects dolmens, menhirs, cysts, and "cromlechs, almost as gigantic in their proportions and very similar in appearance and construction to the so-called Druidical remains of Western Europe." These are the Khasia people, of East Bengal, an Indo-Chinese race. They erect one or more every year, separating the blocks by applying heat and then water, and using no implements beyond the lever and rope. Further investigation of their habits will no doubt throw great light on certain prehistoric facts in this and other countries of Europe.-Besides, this is the third year in which an International Congress has been held for the promotion of "Prehistoric "Archæology," a branch of the general subject which has of late assumed great scientific importance. Of the papers read, one was by E. B. Tylor, Esq., On "the customs of existing Savages, as illustrations of Prehistoric Times;" and others were on Stone and Flint Implements from various parts of the World, on Crania, Ancient Cave Habitations, Prehistoric Sepulchres, the Distribution of Man, &c.

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treat of the facts referred to in an Appendix* to this section. And, that the line of facts here may harmonise with the line of arguments in the previous Essay to which this is related, I adopt the same great divisions.

1. Forests.t

Primeval forests, which have disappeared from England in general for two or three centuries, exist to-day in both North and South America. Every fact, respecting their treatment, therefore, is well known; and we are morally certain that we have placed before us,-with certain minute differences in time and place, the facts which occurred centuries ago, on our own soil. And what are these facts, or some of them?

When land is required for cultivation it must be cleared; and this is effected partly by fire, and partly by the axe of the woodman. It is very difficult to burn down a tree in the full vigour of vegetable life; but if fire be applied at the close of a few weeks of dry weather, or when the leaves are beginning to assume the tints of autumn, the tree is inevitably killed. The brushwood and other lighter materials blaze up, the smaller portions are consumed; and one side is usually very much charred, while the vitality of the trunk is destroyed. Indian corn or some other agricultural product is then planted among these.blackened skeletons, and the farmer awaits a convenient opportunity to level them with the axe. Often the trees are carted away, or converted into fences for the very field in which they grew; while the stumps remain from eighteen to forty inches high. On other occasions, the branches are sawn off; and the trunks being cut into lengths, are carted or floated to a distance. But not unfrequently a saw-pit is erected in a wood of good timber, the logs are rudely squared by the axe, and they are then divided into boards.

* Appendix A.

+ Trans. of the Historic Society of Lanc. and Chesh., xviii, (New Series, vi,) p. 5. Numerous cases were mentioned in the Newspapers, in the month of July and the first days of August, 1868.

We must not suppose, however, that these operations illustrate the practice of our forefathers, in clearing England. of its medieval forests. The processes of an enlightened. people by whom good implements are used, and who aim at economy or profit, are less in point than those of a primitive people with whom agriculture is yet in its infancy. Such are found among the Indians of South Chile, who exist apart from the rest of the world, though at their most distant borders there is a mixture, more or less, of Spanish blood. Their practice is something like the following. About three or four months before the harvest, they cut down all the light timber. The heavier portions are allowed to stand; and after harvest the timber lying on the ground is burnt. In the latter part of May and June, (answering to our November and December,) they sow wheat and leave it. If the soil be hard, they drive oxen in to tread it down; if not, the rain covers it sufficiently. The whole is surrounded by a rude fence.

The trees which are found in our own subterranean forests* or turf bogs excite among inquirers, as we might expect, some varieties of opinion. Thus, it is affirmed by one that they have been blown down by a great storm, or levelled by an irruption of the sea; by another, that they fell before the woodman's axe; and by another still, that fire was the element which laid them low. It will be evident from what has just been stated, that fire and the axe jointly were the principal agents.

2. Mosses.t

Though I saw no mosses, properly speaking, yet they are known to exist. In the south-temperate zone, and where rains are of frequent occurrence, there are numerous settlements of

+ Trans. of the Historic Society of Lanc. and Chesh., xviii, (New Series, vi,) p. 21 * For additional facts respecting subsidences of land on the sea coasts or "Submarine Forests," see Appendix B.