the existence of an age of copper (Fig. 2). We may add that the mounds
of North America contain none but copper implements and ornaments,
witnesses of a time when that metal alone was known either on the
shores of the Atlantic or of the Pacific[29] (Fig. 3).


FIGURE 3

Copper beads, from Connett's Mound, Ohio (natural size).


It is impossible to fix the duration of the Stone age. It began with
man, it lasted for countless centuries, and we find it still prevailing
amongst certain races who set their faces against all progress. The
scenes sculptured upon Egyptian monuments dating from the ancient
Empire represent the employment of stone weapons, and their use was
continued throughout the time of the Lagidae and even into that of
the Roman domination. A few years ago, on the shores of the Nile, I
saw some of the common people shave their heads with stone razors, and
the Bedouins of Gournah using spears headed with pointed flints. The
Ethiopians in the suite of Xerxes had none but stone weapons, and
yet their civilization was several centuries older than that of the
Persians. The excavations on the site of Alesia yielded many stone
weapons, the glorious relics of the soldiers of Vercingetorix. At
Mount Beuvray, on the site of Bibracte, flint hatchets and weapons
have been discovered associated with Gallic coins. At Rome, M. de
Rossi collected similar objects mixed with the AES RUDE. Flint
hatchets are mentioned in the life of St. Eloy, written by St. Owen,
and the Merovingian tombs have yielded hundreds of small cut flints,
the last offerings to the dead. William of Poitiers tells us that