THE first appearance of man in Europe dates back to a period so remote, that neither history, nor even tradition, can throw any light on his origin, or mode of life. Under these circumstances, some have assumed the past to be hidden from the present by a veil, which time would probably thicken, but could never remove. Thus, the memorials of antiquity have been valued as monuments of ancient skill and perseverance, but it has not been supposed that they could be regarded as pages of ancient history; they have been recognized as interesting vignettes, not as historical pictures. Some writers have assured us that, in the words of Palgrave, “We must give it up, that speechless past; whether fact or chronology, doctrine or mythology; whether in Europe, Asia, Africa or America; at Thebes or Palenque, on Lycian shore or Salisbury Plain: lost is lost; gone is gone for ever.” While if others, more hopefully, have endeavoured to reconstruct the story of the past, they have too often allowed imagination to usurp the place of research, and written rather in the spirit of the novelist, than in that of the philosopher.

But of late years a new branch of knowledge has arisen; a new Science has, so to say, been born among us, which deals with times and events far more ancient than any of those which have yet fallen within the province of the archaeologist. The geologist reckons not by days or by years; the whole six thousand years, which were until lately looked on as the sum of the world's age, are to him but as a unit of measurement in the long succession of past ages.