{417}
CHAMBERS’S JOURNAL
OF
POPULAR
LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.
CONTENTS
PREHISTORIC MAN.
IN ALL SHADES.
POPULAR LEGAL FALLACIES.
WHERE THE TRACKS LED TO.
MUSICAL SAND.
NOSES.
SMOKING AND SNUFFING IN CHURCH.
ABOUT DEATH’S-HEADS.
THE PIG PEN.
THE MINSTRELS.
No. 131.—Vol. III.
Price 1½d.
SATURDAY, JULY 3, 1886.
PREHISTORIC MAN.
The early history of man in every country isshrouded in considerable mystery and uncertainty.Of our own history, we have fairly full andaccurate knowledge as far back as the days of theSaxon kings; but beyond that period, the lightof history gradually fades into tradition. Inseeking to follow the earlier history, even thelight of tradition soon fails us, and we are leftin complete darkness. The history of some othercountries reaches further into the gloom of thepast. But even Greece and Egypt have theirdim dawn of history, beyond which the voice ofmassive ancient Sphinx and temple-ruins of theone are silent, and the beautiful myths of theother have no further record. When, however,tradition fails us, we have not by any meansreached the farthest point in the history of therace. At that point, geology comes to our assistancewith revelations of men of the rudest stage oflife living in prehistoric ages under circumstancesof great interest. It is to this early age of whichgeology speaks, that we here turn attention.
The peat-mosses of Denmark supply importantdata for the early history of man in that country.In these peats are imbedded many relics of apeople who dwelt in that region long beforethe present race had migrated thither. Theserelics consist chiefly of curiously formed implementsand weapons in stone and bronze—hammer,arrow, and spear heads, hatchets and knives, &c.Now, peat is formed slowly. It is the result ofthe annual growth and decay of numerous marsh-plants—eachyear’s mass of dead rushes, reeds,and grasses being overgrown by the vegetationof the succeeding year. The formation takesplace in marshy hollows; and in process of time,consolidates and sinks into the soft soil on whichit rests. The growth of each year, however, addsonly a very thin stratum to the formation, andwhen this is pressed by the strata of subsequentyears, it sinks into still smaller compass. TheDanish peats attain a thickness of about thirty