The upper period of barbarism begins finally with the smelting of iron ore, and the discovery of the phonetic alphabet. The iron plow-share is invented, making possible agriculture on a larger scale; the iron axe and spade are brought into requisition, making easy the clearing of the forests. With the preparation of iron, a number of fields are opened to activity, imparting to life a new form. Iron utensils help the building of houses, vessels and weapons; with the preparation of metals arises skilled handwork, a more perfect knowledge of weapons, and the building of walled cities. Architecture, as an art, then rises; mythology, poetry and history find support and expansion in the discovery of the phonetic alphabet. The Orient and the countries bordering on the Mediterranean, particularly Egypt, Greece and Italy, are those in which the last sketched stage of life principally unfolded; and it laid the foundation for the social transformation that in the course of time exercised a determining influence on the social development of Europe and of the whole earth. As a matter of course, the social development of the human race through the periods of savagery and barbarism had also its peculiar sexual and social relations, differing materially from those of later days. Bachofen and Morgan have traced these relations by means of thorough investigations. Bachofen, by studying closely all ancient and modern writings, so as to arrive at the nature of phenomena that appear singular to us in mythology, folk-lore and historic tradition, and that, nevertheless, seem to be re-echoed in incidents and events of later days, occasionally even of our own. Morgan, by spending decades of his life among the Iroquois Indians, located in the State of New York, and thereby making observations, through which he gained new and unexpected insight into the system of life, the family and the relationships of the said Indian tribe, and, based upon which, observations made elsewhere, first received their correct interpretation and explanation. Both of them, Bachofen and Morgan, discovered, each along his own line of research, the latter, however, far more clearly than the former, that the relations of the sexes during primitive times of human development were substantially different from the relations existing in historic days, and among the modern civilized peoples. Especially did Morgan discover--thanks to his many years' sojourn among the Iroquois of North America, and grounded upon comparative studies, which he was moved to by that which he there observed,--that all the existing races, that are still materially backward, possess systems of family and consanguinity that are totally different from ours, but must be similar to those once prevalent among all races during the previous stages of civilization.