Nashville union and American. [volume] (Nashville, Tenn.) 1868-1875, 1874-06-28
THE LAST WORN OF SCIENCE

The time is not distant when all
reading white people will take a lively
interest in their progenitors who lived
IN western, central and southern Eu-
rope two thousand years ago. In
treating of "the great ice age" in con-
nection with the antiquity of man, Mr..
Geikie says: Upwards of 100000
years ago the earth, as we know from
ca REGULATIONS of astronomers, was so
placed in regard to the sun that Sc
res OF physical changes was induced,
which eventually resulted in conferring
npon our hemisphere a most intensely
severe climate. All northern Europe
and North America disap-
peared beneath a thick crust
of ice and snow, and the glaciers of
such regions as Switzerland assumed
gigantic proportions. This great sheet
of land ice levelled up the valleys of
Britain, and stretched across our noun
tains and hills down to low ATTITUDES
in England" Astronomical calcula-
tons of the movements of the earth,
moon and sun are among the most re-
liable IN science, assuming that earth
and sky have existed for unknown
ages. Some biologists claim that be-
fore this reign of snow and ice began
in Europe and America, man had left
in caves and fields unmistakable mon
uments of his industry and existence
in the South of England, in France.
Germany and Italy.
Whether the paIeOlitsic man-that is
the man In England who first invented
stone hammer, a stone axe and a
stone ADJ, and used these tools for IN
dustrial purposes, before the ice age
became extinct like the mammoth in
our own country, or emigrated to a
warmer cline and survived, is a ques-
tlon as yet unsettled by the bold
scientists. If he left for a few GEN.
turies, when the climate compelled
him to leave or perish, he had appar-
emily on his return, made great i'm
provement in the construction of stone
instruments, and became what is known
in geology as the neolithic nan. Instead
of there being a gap of a few CEN
turtles between the first generations
to use rude stone tools, and the last,
whose stone instruments were in better
form, polished, with wooden handles
superior to a hickory withe wound
round blacksmith's cold chisel, as
some of our readers have seen, the
latest guess is that ten thousand years
or more may have elapsed. Neolithic
tools are always found in amore recent
formation of sand, clay, gravel or
loan, than the former. Since Julius
Cesar visited England some two thou
sand years ago, the level of the River
Thames has changed very little UT
since the stratum of gravel Astounding
IN these most ancient tools
was deposited, the bed of the river
has been lowered fifty feet, and a valley
scooped out by ice or water five miles
wide. Human bones and stone axes
are found in caves andfresh water clays
and sands, side by side with the remains
of extinct species of mammalia in pre-
glacial and.interglacial strata. If as
Economical science fixes approximately
the epoch Of life for the one, it does as
much for the other. One might allow
$4,000 years for tb' Haleohthic age;
$4,000 for the neohtblc age; $4,000 for
the age in which bronze tools were
used; 10000 in which iron tools were
used before the invention Of steel, and
10000 years since that event. Our
readers must bear with these loose
guesses. They are eminently scientific.
Old fogies who were taught that science
meant knowledge, certainty, must re-
member that there has arisen modern
science which says practically that
man can know nothing for certain, and
very naturally this science lapses into
a sort of dogmatic guesswork. But to
proceed.
How long man lived with no tools
whatever, and used clubs or his hands
and teeth to defend himself, there is no
way of finding out. After man became
a mechanic and wanted hammer, axe,