It must not be supposed that the New Stone Age at first goes much beyond the Old in culture. Works on prehistoric man are apt to give as features of "Neolithic man" all that we know him to have done or discovered during the whole of the New Stone Age. We read that he not only gave a finer finish to, and sometimes polished, his stone weapons, but built houses, put imposing monuments over his dead, and had agriculture, tame cattle, pottery, and weaving. This is misleading, as the more advanced of these accomplishments appear only late in the New Stone Age. The only difference we find at first is that the stone axes, etc., are more finely chipped or flaked, and are frequently polished by rubbing on stone moulds. There is no sudden leap in culture or intelligence in the story of man. It would be supremely interesting to trace the evolution of human industries and ideas during the few tens of thousands of years of the New Stone Age. During that time moral and religious ideas are largely developed, political or social forms are elaborated, and the arts of civilised man have their first rude inauguration. The foundations of civilisation are laid. Unfortunately, precisely because the period is relatively so short and the advance so rapid, its remains are crushed and mingled in a thin seam of the geological chronicle, and we cannot restore the gradual course of its development with any confidence. Estimates of its duration vary from 20,000 to 70,000 years; though Sir W. Turner has recently concluded, from an examination of marks on Scottish monuments, that Neolithic man probably came on foot from Scandinavia to Scotland, and most geologists would admit that it must be at least a hundred thousand years since one could cross from Norway to Scotland on foot. As usual, we must leave open the question of chronology, and be content with a modest provisional estimate of 40,000 or 50,000 years. We dimly perceive the gradual advance of human culture in this important period. During the Old Stone Age man had made more progress than he had made in the preceding million years; during the New Stone Age--at least one-fourth as long as the Old--he made even greater progress; and, we may add, in the historical period, which is one-fourth the length of the Neolithic Age, he will make greater progress still. The pace of advance naturally increases as intelligence grows, but that is not the whole explanation. The spread of the race, the gathering of its members into tribes, and the increasing enterprise of men in hunting and migration, lead to incessant contacts of different cultures and a progressive stimulation.