There is no discovery with respect to primæval man—his powers and capabilities, his possible enjoyments and appreciation of the beautiful, his certain infinite elevation as a reasonable being above the beasts of the field, in the most distant age and period to which his existence has been traced,—so full of interest, so full as yet of unfathomed mystery, as these wonderful works in ivory and bone. It can scarcely be supposed that, by a happy accident, we have lighted on the only specimens which were ever executed of such great merit; or that there were some two or three men only who for a brief time in the stone age, by a sort of miracle, were able to produce work so excellent. Further researches and a few more fortunate “finds” may enable us to learn much more than we now know of other habits, and the state of (what we call) the barbarism of those ancient races in other respects. Nor must we forget that for numberless generations after these men had passed away their descendants lost all the old power and skill. “Dark ages” came, similar (although incomparably longer in duration) to those which followed Greek or Roman civilisation and science from the sixth to the ninth and tenth centuries after Christ. Again quoting Sir John Lubbock, we know that “no representation, however rude, of any animal has yet been found in any of the Danish shell mounds. Even on objects of the bronze age they are so rare that it is doubtful whether a single well-authenticated instance could be produced.” “Even curved lines” upon the rude and coarse pieces of pottery of later ages “are rare.” Once more: “Very few indeed of the British sepulchral urns, belonging to ante-Roman times, have upon them any curved lines. Representations of animals are also almost entirely wanting.” Further discussion and speculation upon this subject would here be out of place. We must leave it, although with great regret. We must pass at one bound to a later period of time which, however long ago it may seem to us looking back upon it, is nevertheless, in comparison with the supposed date of the men who left their ivory and bone carvings in the caves of Aquitaine, positively modern. CHAPTER II. Although the narrative of the sacred Scriptures does not, with the exception of the first eleven chapters of Genesis, reach back so far as the known history of the kingdom of Egypt, it may be best to mention, first, some places in the Old Testament in which reference is made to works in ivory.