husbandman ploughing in the field. She ran and picked him up with her
finger and thumb, put him and his plough and oxen into her apron, and
carried them to her mother, saying, "Mother, what sort of beetle is
this that I have found wriggling in the sand? " But the mother said,
"Put it away, my child; we must begone out of this land, for these
people will dwell in it."

M. Worsaae of Copenhagen, who has been followed by other antiquaries,
has even gone so far as to divide the natural history of civilization
into three epochs, according to the character of the tools used in
each. The first was the Stone period, in which the implements chiefly
used were sticks, bones, stones, and flints. The next was the Bronze
period, distinguished by the introduction and general use of a metal
composed of copper and tin, requiring a comparatively low degree of
temperature to smelt it, and render it capable of being fashioned
into weapons, tools, and implements; to make which, however,
indicated a great advance in experience, sagacity, and skill in the
manipulation of metals. With tools of bronze, to which considerable
hardness could be given, trees were felled, stones hewn, houses and
ships built, and agriculture practised with comparative facility.
Last of all came the Iron period, when the art of smelting and
working that most difficult but widely diffused of the minerals was
discovered; from which point the progress made in all the arts of
life has been of the most remarkable character.

Although Mr. Wright rejects this classification as empirical, because
the periods are not capable of being clearly defined, and all the
three kinds of implements are found to have been in use at or about
the same time,*
[footnote...