tween the productions of the various periods, yet when more closely examined the points of agreement are so many and striking that we can only account for them as the products of kindred feelings and tastes. The fact that in all the three periods the same curious manner of habitation was employed-Marin belongs exclusively to the iron age the gradual intermixture we find in some of the settlements of bronze and iron-the shape of the celts and other implements of stone and bronze, so precisely alike in form-the pottery-all show that "the difference of material used for the various implements marks the epochs which follow each other in the development of one and the same race, not the degree of civilisation of different peoples." Notwithstanding, then, the translator's caution in the note on page 2, it seems that Dr. Keller cannot "arrive at any conclusion but this: that the builders of the lake dwellings were a branch of the Celtic population of Switzerland, but that the earlier settlements belong to the pre-historic period, and had already fallen into decay before the Celts took their place in the history of Europe."

The solution of this question might, perhaps, have been more easy had we possessed what, considering the many centuries the lakedwellings were occupied, we might reasonably have expected to possess, remains of the inhabitants themselves. But it is a very remarkable circumstance that up to the present time, at least, very few such remains have been discovered; and even these, with one exception to be mentioned presently, not under such conditions apparently as to enable us to assign them to any particular period. No traces of burial-grounds have been met with-none of those confused mixtures of bones that are supposed to be the relics of cannibal feasts in Denmark, Yorkshire, &c., and which we now hear of from British Guiana. Professor Phillips was fortunate enough to disinter with his own hands a portion of a cranium from that part of the mound of La Tiniere, on the Lake of Geneva, which is assigned to the stone period; but it is unfortunately too imperfect to show to what "type" of skull it belonged. Not that we should set much value on the evidence of a single specimen. The fact that we can find without any difficulty in our own country examples of most various "types,' should make us very cautious in generalizing except from very full and ample materials. But the strange fact remains still to be accounted for, why human remains are so rare in the lake dwellings. Were the bodies of the dead burned, as we know was the custom among the Celts in later times, or were they simply thrown into the lake? If so, their disappearance might be more easily accounted for. When the great Lake of Haerleem was drained, though many an engagement had taken place on its waters, the only traces of man were a few Spanish ships, some coins, and arms.

Is it possible to assign any approximate date to these lake dwellings? Perhaps the time has hardly yet arrived when a pre-historical question of this kind can be considered as dispassionately as it ought to be. We have had hitherto far too much, on the one hand, of an unreasoning suspicion of science, as if it were undermining the very foundations of the faith, and perilling all that was most dear and precious; and, on the other hand, an equally unreasoning apotheosis of the uniformity of nature, and the laws by which she is supposed to work. A too eager acceptance of hasty generalizations is quite as fatal to the interests of truth as a narrow-minded continuance in exploded beliefs. It is, of course, simple want of faith to be afraid of the truth. Science and theology will emerge from the mists that have exaggerated their proportions and obscured their positions, only the firmer and truer friends. And perhaps Professor Keller may have understated the arguments in the question we are considering as much as Professor Rütimeyer may have pushed it beyond its fair limits in the quotation we propose to make from his essay at the end of this paper. Professor Keller alludes to the calculations made by M. Merlot from the mound of the Tiniere, already mentioned, and which were put before the Bath meeting of the British Association by Professor Phillips. M. Morlot thinks that the stone period may be estimated at between 6,000 and 7,000 years old. Professor Keller, however, thinks that this is "going too far." Starting, we presume, from the very sensible position that where there are several lines of argument, it is not safe to follow one-e.g., the theoretical rate of the deposition of strata-to the exclusion of the rest, he inquires whether we have in historical times any evidence of the existence of such "ages" as we are considering. And he concludes that a "bronze age can be very fairly recognised in the times of Homer and David. The "bronze period," therefore, he would be disposed to place about B.C. 1000. "But the settlements of the stone age must be earlier, and yet they are so closely connected with those of the bronze age by such stations as Robenhausen and Meilen, and even the oldest settlements like Wangen and Moosseedorf, both in cultivated plants and in domestic animals, agree so nearly with the others, that no sharp line can be drawn between them, and they cannot probably be further thrown back many thousand years."

It would hardly be rash to assume that civilization must have been longer in reaching the wild inland tracts of Switzerland than the shores of the Ægean. On the other hand, we must not forget that iron is mentioned in the Book of Job-a work, even according to M. Ernest Rénan, of very high antiquity—and that it was quite well known in the time of Homer. Hesiod tells us expressly that the "bronze period" was over before his time, and the iron one begun.

τοῖς δ ̓ ἦν χάλκεα μὲν τεύχεα, χάλκεοι δέ τε δικοι
χαλκῷ δ' ἐργάζοντο, μέλας δ ̓ οὐκ ἔσκε σίδηρος.

Still iron cannot have been a common metal in the time of Homer, when we find that pieces of it were then given as prizes (Il., xxiii. 261, 850).

When Dr. Keller tells us that the settlement of Meilen belongs to about the same period as the barrows of South Dorset, he only means, of course, to say that the remains at these places are to a great extent similar. Stone, bronze, and iron "ages," however useful for the comparative classification of antiquities in any one locality or neighbourhood, are of no absolute value in the determination of time. The Kjökkenmöddinger "period" of the very ancient inhabitants of Denmark is that of the Fuegians of the present day, and the stone period of the lake dwellings still exists with the modern Eskimaux. The inhabitants of these lake dwellings, howeyer, were by no means the oldest inhabitants of that portion of Europe. Traces of a still earlier people are found at Aurignac and other localities, perhaps an Eskimaux or Lapp people, rich in reindeer herds, or hunters of those animals on the Cevennes and Mont Dor. With one more quotation bearing on this subject, from Professor Rütimeyer's essay, we take our leave of Dr. Keller's most admirable and interesting work.*

"I cannot, in conclusion, refrain from expressing my conviction that even the oldest lake dwellings do not by any means exhibit to us the primitive population of our country. I must, indeed, regard them as antochthones," or at least as very ancient inhabitants of these districts, for they possessed as domestic animals a number of those which undoubtedly were indigenous here -particularly the urus and the marsh swine: but the fact that from the beginning they had the sheep and dog, the indigenous origin of which is, to say the least, highly improbable, indicates their having descended from a still earlier people. For my own part, therefore, I have little doubt of the existence at one time of a genuine primitive population throughout Europe. This appears to have been proved, as far as France is concerned, by the latest discovery in Aurignac.†

"This seems to be the first place where we can no longer strive against the evidence of a European population, who used as food not only the urus and bison, but also the mammoth and the rhinoceros, and who left the remains of their feasts not only to be gnawed by the wolf and the fox, but also by the tiger and the hyaena. It is in truth an old psychological experience, that we always consider that to be really primitive which we see farthest removed

The two or three slight inaccuracies we have pointed out, will no doubt be corrected in a second edition. We should advise the translator also to omit the note on p. 306, about the translation of xaλkóg. He will find that the best lexicons and classical scholars perfectly agree with him in translating it" bronze."

The caution in Mr. Tristram's essay in the May number of the Contemporary Review is perhaps a little too strong. It was true that the cave was pretty well knocked about before scientific men examined it, but it was carefully explored afterwards. In Professor Phillips's judgment—a very safe and conscientious guide-the interments cannot be referred to a comparatively late period.

from us, and this in spite of numerous admonitions which are continually pointing out to us stations lying further and still further behind. The investigation of the commencement of human history will hardly have the prerogative of being liberated from the gradual advance which paleontology has followed up. The discovery at Aurignac places the age of our lake dwellings at a comparatively later period, although almost immediately under our peat beds, with their rich treasures, similar antiquities are found; nay, still older remains are met with, only a little deeper (in the slaty brown coal of Dürnten, perhaps forty feet under the bed of the lake Pfäffikon), than those of Aurignac, which have there been gnawed by hyænas, after having been despoiled of their marrow (like the bones of Robenhausen) by human hands. The last fact would also point out to us the place where we are to look for the remains of the ancestors of the lake settlers, namely, under the glacier moraines; for it is manifest that the people who inhabited the grotto of Aurignac were older than the extension of the glaciers, and consequently also witnesses of this mighty phenomenon. But this fact, on the other hand, takes away from us every hope of still finding traces of human existence on places over which the ancient glaciers have passed. Examples showing this in later times are by no means wanting in our country. At all events, the last gap between geology and historical time is now filled up by the discovery at Aurignac."

H. H. WOOD.

Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners appointed to inquire into the
Revenues and Management of certain Colleges and Schools, and the
Studies pursued therein. 1864.

II.

WE approach now a disheartening part of our investigation. We

refer to the cultivation of English literature. The Commissioners do not appear to have got a single encouraging reply to their inquiries on this head. One of the Rugby witnesses thought a few boys might read Shakespeare, Pope, or Dryden; but he spoke with no great confidence. At Eton a witness says the school library is very little used; the collegers, he thought, used it, but the oppidans very little. His evidence is rather too long to quote, but it may be found, vol. iii. p. 249. The most surprising part of it is the following question and answer :

(Mr. Thompson.) "Beyond reading over the passages set for Greek iambics and hexameters, you do not think Milton and Shakspeare much read ?" "No, I do not."

If the witness's impression be correct, it is scarcely too much to call this the most discouraging answer in the whole Report. Taste for reading must be at a low point indeed if a boy capable of doing Greek iambics can set to work at translating a passage from the Tempest, or As You Like It, and not be tempted to read the play. It cuts away what we have always been in the habit of considering one of the strongest arguments for continuing the practice of Latin or Greek composition-that it introduced boys to the study of most of the great English writers. For ourselves, we know of no early