silt under the streets of Glasgow, one in a vertical position with
the prow uppermost, as if it had sunk in a storm.... Almost every one
of these ancient boats was formed out of a single oak-stem, hollowed
out by blunt tools, probably stone axes, aided by the action of fire;
a few were cut beautifully smooth, evidently with metallic tools.
Hence a gradation could be traced from a pattern of extreme rudeness
to one showing great mechanical ingenuity.... In one of the canoes a
beautifully polished celt or axe of greenstone was found; in the
bottom of another a plug of cork, which, as Mr. Geikie remarks,
'could only have come from the latitudes of Spain, Southern France,
or Italy.'"-- Sir C. LYELL, Antiquity of Man, 48-9.
...]
Their smaller boats, or coracles, were made of osiers interwoven,
covered with hides, and rigged with leathern sails and thong tackle.

It will readily be imagined that anything like civilization, as at
present understood, must have been next to impossible under such
circumstances. "Miserable indeed," says Carlyle, "was the condition
of the aboriginal savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of
hair, which with the beard reached down to his loins, and hung round
them like a matted cloak; the rest of his body sheeted in its thick
natural fell. He loitered in the sunny glades of the forest, living
on wild fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonians, squatted himself in
morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements,
without arms, save the ball of heavy flint, to which, that his sole
possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord
of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with
deadly, unerring skill."

The injunction given to man to "replenish the earth and subdue it"