PHYSIOGRAPHY OF GREAT BRITAIN IN LATE PLEISTOCENE AGE. Shaded area Land now submerged; Dotted area Region occupied by animals; Plain area Region occupied by glaciers.

we can tell the live creatures from each other. proof as Robinson Crusoe's footprint.

That is as good

7. This seems to prove very clearly that England could not have been an island then. For how would all these great creatures have got over the sea? They could not have swum so far; and it is certain, even if men had come across in boats, they would not have wanted to bring these fierce wild beasts with them. Another thing is, that in many parts of the sea, between England and the Continent, fishermen are frequently dredging up bones and teeth of the same animals, which had lived and died in those parts when they were still dry land. And the same sorts of bones, tusks, &c., are found in great numbers on the mainland opposite to England. The sea is not very deep in any part of the German Ocean, and it is known by other proofs that sometimes land rises above the sea, and sometimes sinks below it.

8. Now amongst all these great, fierce, and strong animals, there was another remarkable animal living, much smaller than the lions and elephants, and apparently very helpless. The lions had enormous strength in claws and teeth; this poor creature had no claws, and very small teeth. The elephant and rhinoceros could crush an enemy with their weight; the elephant has also huge tusks. The hyæna had wonderfully powerful jaws. We all know about a 66 bear's hug." This poor thing had no tusks nor great heavy limbs. The bisons and elks had horns; this creature had none. Then, for the cold climate, many of the animals, even the elephants and rhinoceroses, had woolly or furry coats or manes. This creature had a bare skin, with no fur, no wool, and very little hair.

9. Which of all these creatures was likely to be crushed, devoured, and stamped out first?

Yet that very one is living, triumphant lord and master; and where are the lions and elephants, the bears and the hyenas? Gone for ever, every one of them; at any rate out of England, but many of them out of the whole world.

10. And now, how could this be, which is as wonderful as any fact in history, perhaps the most wonderful of all? That poor defenceless creature, though he had no horns Man. nor claws, had what none of the others had-a mar

vellous power of thought and a marvellous power of improvement. No other animal could come near him in that. And by that by thought and by intelligence-he subdued or survived all the others. Set in the midst of all these fierce enemies, and so helpless, he thought of what no brute has ever in the world

thought of he thought of making a tool; something that he could use instead of all the weapons they had growing on them by nature. And though his first tools were very rude and rough, they were the wonderful beginning of all the innumerable things we have to help us in our works. Of course these wild savage men could not write to tell us of their tools, but we have just as good proof of them as we had of the elephants, &c., for they are dug up in multitudes in the very same places where the horns and tusks are found, and may be seen in the British and other Museums. 11. These earliest tools were naturally made of stones, bones, or horns. Men had not yet, nor for a very long time after, the idea of working in metals. They picked up a stone, and as well as they could, shaped it to a point, or a cutting edge; it could then be used as a hatchet, a knife, an awl, or an arrow-head. They used it, no doubt, for all sorts of purposes, especially for killing animals and cutting up the flesh. But they could also make a peaceable tool, such as we use now -namely, a needle. Their needles were made of the bone of reindeer or horses, carefully smoothed and rounded on fragments of sandstone, and the eyes neatly pierced with a sharp stone awl. As they had no thread, and knew nothing about spinning or weaving, they most likely wore clothes of skin, or the bark of trees, and threaded their needles for sewing them with the tendons of reindeer. Probably they used tendons also for bow-strings.

His first arts.

12. Another thing these savage men could do was to make a fire; for in the caves where they lived their old hearths have been discovered, and great quantities of charcoal. Most likely they roasted their meat, for they had not yet learned to make pots or saucepans. Nor had they learned to make houses; at least, all we can find out about their dwellings is, that they lived in caves when they could find them. As the hyænas, lions, and bears also liked the caves, we may be sure there were many fights who should get possession of them, and sometimes the men conquered, and sometimes the wild beasts. They had not yet learned to till the ground, but lived, as the lowest savages always do, only by hunting and fishing. They do not appear to have had any domestic animal, not even a dog.

13. But though so savage, they were fond of ornaments! The skeleton of one of these men has been found (though not in England) with bracelets of sea-shells round the arms and wrists, knees and ankles. They also adorned themselves with beads of coral and teeth of animals.

Stranger still; some of them could draw, or as we should rather say "engrave," or incise on pieces of bone or ivory. One of those ancient artists made a picture of an elephant, such as lived at that time, (now called a mammoth,) which had a long hairy coat and mane. As no such elephants exist now in the world, we should have thought this a fancy of the artist, had it not been for the discovery, in Siberia, of the frozen bodies of some of the very same animals, which had been buried in ice and frozen gravel for more thousands of years than one can say, with the fur and hair still in good preservation.

14. The people who lived before history was written, and of whom we know nothing but from what they left behind them, are named by us after the tools they used. Those just described are called "palæolithic," meaning "ancient stone," because their tools were principally made of stone; and at this period were very different from those of the next set of people we know anything about.

The second period.

15. These are called "neolithic," meaning "new stone." They were greatly improved in many ways from the palæolithic men. For one thing, they could make their tools much better. They still made them of stones; but they had learned to shape and polish them beautifully, so that they were far more convenient and useful. By this time the great wild beasts had disappeared; instead of lions and elephants, we find with the polished stone implements the remains of dogs, pigs, oxen, sheep, and goats. Very likely Britain was an island by this time, but was larger than it is now; for there were great forests growing where there is now sea. On many parts of the coast there may still be seen, at low water, the relics of these forests, stumps of large trees, &c., sunk beneath the sea. Most of the country was covered with rocks, forest, and morass, which afforded shelter to elks, bisons, and reindeer. Reindeer moss is still to be found growing on some of the old commons near London; at Keston, for instance.

16. The neolithic men had begun to be more civilized in their food. They seem to have eaten corn, and to have kept tame animals, instead of depending only on the chase.

ment.

They ate beef, pork, and hares, also goats, horses, and Improvedogs. Some learned men believe that they were cannibals, and ate human flesh also, but I do not think this can be proved. They had stone implements for crushing or grinding

corn.

They had also learnt two other great arts, though they were