CHAPTER I

The Stone Age: its Duration and its Place in Time.

The nineteenth century, now nearing its close, has made an indelible
impression upon the history of the world, and never were greater things
accomplished with more marvellous rapidity. Every branch of science,
without exception, has shared in this progress, and to it the daily
accumulating information respecting different parts of the globe
bas greatly contributed. Regions, previously completely closed, have
been, so to speak, simultaneously opened by the energy of explorers,
who, like Livingstone, Stanley, and Nordenskiold, have won immortal
renown. In Africa, the Soudan, and the equatorial regions, where the
sources of the Nile lie hidden; in Asia, the interior of Arabia, and
the Hindoo Koosh or Pamir mountains, have been visited and explored. In
America whole districts but yesterday inaccessible are now intersected
by railways, whilst in the other hemisphere Australia and the islands
of Polynesia have been colonized; new societies have rapidly sprung
into being, and even the unmelting ice of the polar regions no longer
checks the advance of the intrepid explorer. And all this is but a
small portion of the work on which the present generation may justly