[41] 'Les Sépultures de Saint-Jean de Belleville,' with lithographed plates. PRIMITIVE MAN IN AMERICA. PRIMITIVE MAN IN AMERICA. The development of mankind has, doubtless, been of much the same character in all parts of the world, so that, in whatever quarter of the world man may come under our consideration, he must have passed through the same phases of progress ere he arrived at his present state. Everywhere, man must have had his Stone Age, his Bronze Epoch, and his Iron Epoch, succeeding one another in the same order which we have ascertained to have existed in Europe. In the sketch which we have drawn of primitive man we have devoted our attention almost entirely to Europe; but the cause simply is, that this part of the world has, up to the present day, been the principal subject of special and attentive studies in this respect. Asia, Africa, and America can scarcely be said to have been explored in reference to the antiquity of our species; but it is probable that the facts which have been brought to light in Europe, would be almost identically reproduced in other parts of the world. This is a fact which, as regards _dolmens_, has been already verified. The sepulchral monuments of the Stone Age, which were at first believed to be peculiar to France, and, indeed, to one province of France, namely Brittany, have since been met with in almost every part of the world. Not only have they been discovered all over Europe, but even the coasts of Africa bring to our notice numerous relics of them; also, through the whole extent of Asia, and even in the interior of India, this same form of sepulchre, bearing witness to a well determined epoch in man's history, have been pointed out and described by recent travellers. Thus, the information which we possess on these points as regards Europe, may well be generalised and applied to the other quarters of the world--to Asia, Africa, America, and Oceania. America, however, has been the scene of certain investigations concerning primitive man which have not been without fertile results; we shall, therefore, devote the last few pages of our work to a consideration of the pre-historic remains of America, and to giving an account of the probable conditions of man's existence there, as they have been revealed to us by these relics. The information which has been made public on these points concerns North America only. It would be useless to dwell on the stone and bone instruments of the New World; in their shape they differ but little from those of Europe. They were applied to the same uses, and the only perceptible difference in them is in the substance of which they were made. We find there hatchets, knives, arrow-heads, &c., but these instruments are not so almost universally made from flint, which is to a considerable extent replaced by obsidian and other hard stones.