52. SIMPLIFICATION (GRAMMATIZING) OF DECORATIVE DESIGN 206 53. SPINDLE-WHORL FROM TROY (FOURTH CITY), WITH THREE SWASTIKAS 206 54. THE "TOMOYE"–THE JAPANESE BADGE OF TRIUMPH 209 55. SYMBOLS OF THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE USED BY THE ANCIENT CHINESE PHILOSOPHER CHU-HSI 209 56. DIAGRAMS TO SHOW THE POSSIBLE DERIVATION OF THE SWASTIKA FROM THE INSCRIPTION OF TWO S-LIKE LINES (OR "OGEES") WITHIN A CIRCLE SO AS TO DIVIDE THE CIRCLE INTO FOUR BENT CONES 209 57. TERRA-COTTA CONE WITH A SEVEN-ARMED SUN-LIKE FIGURE 211 58. SCALLOPED SHELL DISK, FROM A MOUND NEAR NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE, SHOWING IN THE CENTRE A TETRASKELION WITH FOUR CURVED ARMS 211 59. AN ALTAR-STONE OF PREHISTORIC AGE 213 60. DIAGRAMS OF ARBELI 214 SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA CHAPTER I THE EARLIEST PICTURE IN THE WORLD In Figs. 1 and 2 on the next page a cylindrical piece of the antler of a red deer is represented of half the natural size. On it are carved by in-sunk lines certain representations of animals. It was found in the cavern of Lortet, near Lourdes, in the department of the Hautes Pyrénées, in the south of France, together with many other remains of prehistoric man. This cavern was excavated and all its contents of human origin carefully preserved by M. Edouard Piette in 1873 and the following years. Drawings of this and other remarkable carved pieces of bone and antler, many in the form of harpoon heads, and of small chipped flint implements, all found in this cave, were published by him.[1] He excavated also several other caverns with great care, and his collections were bequeathed by him on his death to the great Museum of National Archæology at St. Germain, near Paris, where I have had the advantage of studying them. [Illustration: FIG. 1. FIG. 2. FIGS. 1 AND 2.–Engraved cylinder of red-deer's antler, from the Azilian (Elapho-Tarandian) horizon of the cavern of Lortet. Drawn of a little more than half the actual size of the specimen.] The age assigned to this carving is that called by Piette "Elapho-Tarandian." At this period the reindeer (Tarandus), which previously abounded, is giving place to the red deer (Elaphus). The layer in which this carving was found belongs to the latest of the Palæolithic cave deposits, and was followed by a warmer period, in which the red deer and the modern fauna entirely replaced the old fauna of the Glacial period. The deposits in Pyrenean caves of the Elapho-Tarandian age are characterized by an abundance of large flat harpoons serrated on both sides. In this latest horizon of the Reindeer period the art of engraving in outline on bone and stone had attained the highest pitch of excellence which it reached in the prehistoric race of South-West Europe.