place where some great deed was done, or where something very wonderful had happened. The piling together of stones was an easy and lasting way of keeping such things fresh in men's minds, just as we erect statues in honour of our great men, or build something in memory of their acts of bravery, nobleness, or love. When built as tombs for the dead, their size depended upon the rank of the person to be laid within them. The circles of standing stones-like that at Stonehenge-are thought to have been built for worship of some kind.

You have learnt, then, that during the time when weapons and tools of stone were made men lived a wild, roaming life, eating roots, berries, and fruits, and, in a raw state, the flesh of such animals as they killed, and, sad to say, some of them eating the flesh of their fellowman; clothing themselves, little or much as they needed, in the skins of animals, which they sewed together with bone needles, using the sinews for thread; and now we have to speak about the first mode of getting a fire.

C

IV. Fire.

There are a great many curious stories which profess to give an account of the way in which fire was first obtained, but they are a part of that guess-work about things which is ever going on, and which brings us no nearer the truth. Men have ever been quick to make use of what we call their "wits" (which word comes from an old word used by our forefathers, meaning understanding) or their common sense, and common sense taught them that fire was to be had by rubbing two pieces of wood together. In making their flint weapons sparks would fly, but they saw that the flints themselves could not be set on fire. When they felt cold, they rubbed their hands together and warmth came to them. They tried what could be done by running a blunt-pointed stick along a groove of its own making in another piece of wood, and they found first that each got heated, then that sparks flew, then that flame burst out.

Travellers tell us that savages can produce fire in a few seconds in this way, and that in the

northern seas of Europe the islanders find a bird so fat and greasy that all they have to do is to draw a wick through its body, and on lighting it the bird burns away as a candle does!

And fire was as useful in the days I am writing about as travellers find it now in giving protection from the wild beasts at night, so that man had many reasons for keeping his fire always burning by heaping on it the wood which was ready to his hand in such abundance.

V. Cooking and Pottery.

At first men ate flesh raw, as some northern tribes do now, but afterwards they would learn to cook it, and this they did by simply putting the meat direct to the fire. Afterwards they would dig a hole and line it with the hard hide of the slain animal, fill it with water, put the meat in, and then make stones red-hot, dropping them in until the water was hot enough and the meat cooked. Then a still better way would be found out of boiling the food in vessels set over the fire, which were daubed outside with clay to

prevent their being burnt. Thus men learntseeing how hard fire made the clay—to use it by itself and to shape it into rough pots, which were dried either in the sun or before the fire, and hence arose the beautiful art of making earthenware.

VI. Dwellings.

Besides living in caves, holes were dug in the ground, a wall being made of the earth which was thrown out, and a covering of tree-boughs put over it. Sometimes where blocks of stone were found lying loosely, they were placed together, and a rude, strong kind of hut made in this way.

There have been found in lakes, especially in Swiss lakes, remains of houses which were built upon piles driven into the bed of the lake. The shape of many of these piles shows that they were cut with stone hatchets, and this proves that people lived in this curious fashion in very early times. It is thought that they did so to be freer from the attacks of their enemies and of wild beasts.

These lake-dwellers, as they are called (and they not only lived thus in the Stone Age and later ages, but there are people living in the same manner in the East Indies and other places at this day), made good use of their stone hatchets, for they not only cut down trees, but killed such animals-and very fierce they were as the bear, wolf, and wild boar. They had learned to fish with nets made of flax, which they floated with buoys of bark, and sank with stone weights.

Besides what we know about the dwellings of men in early times, there have been found on the shores of Denmark, Scotland, and elsewhere enormous heaps of what are called "kitchenmiddens." These were really the feeding-places of the people who lived on or about those coasts, and are made up of piles of shells, largely those of the oyster, mussel, periwinkle, &c., on which they fed. With these there have also been found the bones of stags and other animals, and also of birds, as well as flint knives and other things.

I said at starting that the three things which