The extinct mammalia split up into two groups of unequal antiquity. On the one hand, we have the Sabre-toothed Lion (or Tiger), the Elephas Antiquus, the Hippopotamus, and the Woolly and Leptorhine Rhinoceros, found along with the remains of Flint Folk; and with the exception of the two last, began to live in the remote epoch called the Pliocene. On the other, the only two extinct species found in the refuse-heaps of the Reindeer Folk are the Irish Elk and the Mammoth, both of which sprang into being in the Pleistocene Period, and the former lingered on after the disappearance of the latter, and is repeatedly found in the silt of river-beds, and the lacustrine marls underlying the peat, which are of a comparatively modern date. The legitimate inference to be drawn from this is, that those deposits, containing not only the larger proportion of extinct mammals, but also an older group, are of higher antiquity than those containing a smaller proportion and a newer group; or, in other words, that the Flint Folk preceded the Reindeer Folk in time. Thus the evidence afforded by Palæontology corroborates the inference drawn from a comparison of the implements and weapons with reference to the relative age of the two Paleolithic Races.

To this view, indeed, it may be objected that the remains found in a den of Hyænas, or in an old fluviatile or lacustrine deposit, afford a better idea of the Fauna of any given district than those selected from among the wild beasts by man for food, and therefore that the absence of any particular animal from the refuse-heaps is to be accounted for by the fact of its not being met with by man, and does not prove the non-existence of the animal at the time. Had, however, any of the old Pliocene mammals co-existed with the Reindeer Folk, there is no reason why they should not have fallen victims as well as the other large mammals, the Mammoth or the great Urus. While, therefore, it is just possible that one or even the whole of the older animals may at a future time be discovered in association with the remains of the Reindeer Folk, the probability is that they will not be so found.

The three animals that specially characterize the Reindeer deposits of Dordogne as compared with those of the Flint Folk age, are the Antelope Säiga, the Ibex, and the Chamois; of these the former ranges now through the great central plateau of Asia, the second lives in the Pyrenees, and the last in the Alps.

Thus meagre is the outline which the scant materials allow to be drawn of the habits and condition of our earliest ancestors who lived in the Palæolithic age, an age that coincides in part with the Pleistocene or Quaternary Period of the geologists. They passed away like many of the other mammalia, and were supplanted in Western Europe by Folk of a different race, whom Sir John Lubbock terms Neolithic. Without losing any of the useful arts of the preceding age, these invented the use of pottery,

and were not ignorant of the art of spinning. They dwelt in huts, the bottoms of which are now known under the name of hutcircles, sunk in the earth, or raised on piles driven into the shallows of lakes, as in Switzerland. The tumuli spreading over France, Germany, Britain, and Scandinavia prove their belief in a future state, as well as their reverence for the dead, whom they buried without burning. They improved upon the rude unground Palæolithic implements and weapons, by adopting the custom of grinding and polishing them, and of making them out of many kinds of stone not used before, as well as by the adoption of new forms. Universally they had pressed the dog into their service, and in the Pileworks of Switzerland present us with the earliest known assemblage of domestic animals, the horse, pig, goat, sheep, and ox. The first of these was as rare as the last; the small short-horned variety of the existing species was abundant. They were essentially pastoral, but lived upon the fruits of the chase, the Urus and the Red-deer, as well as upon their flocks and herds. The cakes and cereals found prove that they were acquainted also with agriculture.

Sir John Lubbock infers that the tribes who have left their refuse-heaps on the Scandinavian coasts belong to an early period of the Neolithic age. Among other remains of their feasts are bones of the Great Auk (Alca impennis), which has become extinct in Europe during the present century. The oysters which composed their principal food are no longer to be found in the neighbouring seas, a fact that would imply a physical change in the Baltic since their time, which has caused the salt water to become diluted with fresh to a greater extent now than formerly. Their habits were probably very similar to those of the savages of Tierra del Fuego at the present day.

Just as the Neolithic superseded the Paleolithic races, so was the former supplanted by the bronze-using Folk, who arrived in Europe before the dawn of history, and lived there up to the time when history begins. Their peculiar bronze swords without a guard are found throughout Western Europe, and are sometimes most tastefully ornamented. Out of this material also beautiful ornaments were made, and many of the implements and weapons which were used by the Neolithic savage. Since "Cornwall and Saxony are the only known European sources of tin," Sir John Lubbock sagaciously observes, "the mere presence of bronze is in itself a sufficient evidence not only of metallurgical skill, but also of commerce." They were acquainted with the use of the potter's-wheel, and were in the habit of burning their dead. For many purposes they still used stone, and doubtless the poorer made use of it for their axes, long after it had been discarded by the richer classes. The discoveries in the Swiss Lakes prove that the Bronze Folk possessed abundance of horses, and relied for their subsistence more upon

their flocks and herds than upon the chase. They were more pastoral than the previous Neolithic inhabitants of the district.

The date of the introduction of iron into Western Europe cannot be satisfactorily determined. Its use had, however, spread through France, Britain, and Germany before the inhabitants of those countries came into collision with the Roman legions. The iron-using people of Gaul were sufficiently civilized and provided with weapons to be a formidable enemy to Rome in the height of her power, to oppose her disciplined troops in the field with chariots and cavalry, and on the sea to fight for a whole day with the Roman fleet off the coast of Armorica. In Britain and in Switzerland they also used chariots. The pages of Cæsar and Tacitus will give an adequate account of their civilization and habits.

In a review such as this of our Pre-historic ancestors, we must bear in mind that the absolute age of any one of the races is altogether a matter for conjecture. We can simply say that stone preceded bronze, and the latter iron, while we are ignorant of the length of time during which each of these materials was in use, as we are also of the method of its introduction, whether sudden or gradual. In this point, indeed, History differs from Archæology, that it gives the absolute, while the latter gives the relative date.

In these pages we have traced man from his earliest appearance on the earth down to the borders of history, and we have seen how, as he grew older, he profited by his experience, and slowly widened the chasm between himself and the brutes, by making his life more and more artificial. From the past it is impossible not to turn to the future and ask ourselves, whether there be any limit to the progress of the human race? Has man yet attained his full manhood? In the ages that are coming, will he not continue to win fresh victories over nature and her forces, each of which victories will form the basis for another? and as the fetters which bind him to the brutes are broken one by one, will he not grow more and more godlike, until the brutal portion of his nature be altogether swallowed up by the spiritual? Such an augury as this is warranted by a consideration of the past, by the study of History and of Archæology, and of the course of nature written in the great stone-book on which we live.

EXPLANATION OF PLATE.

Figs. 1 & 2. Arrow-head of chert, from Wookey Hole.

Fig. 3. Fishing-spear (?) of reindeer-horn, from the cave of Moustier.

4. Barbed bone in use at pres nt by the Esquimaux of Igloolik, for comparison with Fig. 3.

5. Bone needle in use by the Reindeer Folk.

6. Bone needle in use by the Esquimaux of Igloolik, for comparison with Fig. 5

7. Sculptured figure of a horned Ruminant on a fragment of Reindeer antler from Laugerie-basse.

8. Sculptured figure of the Mammoth on a fragment of ivory belonging to that animal, from the rock-shelter of La Madelaine.

IT has frequently happened in the history of crime that some great culprit has been arraigned for poisoning, and medical or chemical evidence has been called by the prosecution as well as the defence. On such occasions it has sometimes occurred that men of the highest scientific attainments, taking opposite sides in the trial, have given evidence on apparently simple scientific questions of a totally contradictory character. Under such circumstances the counsel for the defence has not unnaturally taken the utmost advantage of the difference of opinion, and in a few isolated cases, perhaps, great criminals may have escaped the punishment which their crimes deserved. "The world," always more ready to criticize and condemn new movements, than to inquire carefully into their merits, has, in consequence of these occasional anomalies in scientific evidence, been disposed to look with contempt upon the efforts of science in the detection of crime; and "differing doctors" have become a by-word in matters of criminal law. But instead of acting as an obstruction to the course of justice, scientific investigation has become the terror of evil-doers, and if it has not succeeded in putting an end to certain classes of homicide, it is simply because criminals are either so foolish as to suppose that their case has been so cleverly managed as to defy detection, or so wicked as to be deterred by no considerations whatever from the execution of their designs.

We could point to innumerable cases where the administering of poison has been suspected by the medical attendant or relative, and it has been detected in the chemist's laboratory, but we feel sure it is unnecessary to adduce any evidence in proof of this to our readers; to them it must be a fact perfectly familiar in the annals of crime. Link by link the untiring chemist has formed the chain of evidence; here tracing the death-potion in the tissues, there in the stomach, there again in the heart or vascular system; and when one reads the accounts of these trials, how unerringly the guilt is almost in every case brought home to the heartless transgressor, it appears surprising that there should still remain men insensate enough to suppose they can tamper with the human system without certain detection.

Added to this facility for tracing poison, the microscopic study of the blood-corpuscles of the vertebrata has given additional means for exposing murder and violence, and recently a third method, more exquisite than any hitherto known, has been added to the list of silent, invisible detectives.

When our correspondent, Mr. H. C. Sorby, first published in

these pages his astounding revelations concerning the detection of blood in fabrics, when he told us that he could trace the presence of the vital fluid months after it had been spilt, and after the fabric had been repeatedly washed with the view to obliterate the stains, we had the pleasure on the one hand of receiving communications from scientific men who at once appreciated the great value of the discovery, and on the other hand we were amused by the sceptical shoulder-shrugs of "the world," which would be "very sorry to condemn a man to death upon such evidence."

Without here discussing the propriety of condemning a man to death on any evidence or for any crime, we have to point out the fact that "the world" is again, as it has often been and often will be, erroneous in its judgments on scientific matters; for largely if not entirely in consequence of the investigation by spectrumanalysis of the blood-stained wood of a hatchet-handle, a man at Aberdare has been sentenced to death for one of the most deliberate, cowardly, atrocious murders that the world ever witnessed.

The crime in question, known as the "Mountain Ash Murder," was committed last September by a youth, aged eighteen, called Coe, the victim being another young man called John Davies, residing in the same locality, and the trial came off in March of the present year.

It is unnecessary to pain our readers by the full details of this crime, which attracted considerable attention at the time; and we shall state as concisely as possible how scientific research succeeded in securing the conviction of the murderer. On a certain Saturday in September, the day on which he received his wages, the murdered man was last seen in company with the criminal who has since perished on the scaffold; and from that time until the 1st of January nothing was heard of him. On that day a farmer, also called John Davies (the same name as the deceased), discovered a dead body in a wood in the neighbourhood of "Mountain Ash," the head being severed from the body, and lying at some distance from the trunk. He at once applied to the police, by whom the body was removed. It was already, to a great extent, decomposed; but was identified as that of John Davies by his father; and here comes the first result of scientific acumen. The father recognized a portion of the clothing found upon the body; but this would hardly have sufficed in evidence. Young Davies had, however, had a back tooth drawn by Mr. Brown, a surgeon, two years before the murder; and that tooth had been preserved by the unfortunate young man's father. It was now inserted into the jaw of the corpse, and "it fitted as well as it could, considering the length of time which had elapsed."

"On the Application of Spectrum-Analysis to Microscopical Investigations, and especially to the Detection of Blood-stains." By H. C. Sorby, F.R.S. Quarterly Journal of Science,' No. 6, April, 1865.