But suddenly there was an end to their isolation.

Prehistoric man was discovered.

A traveler from the unknown south-land who had dared to cross the
turbulent sea and the forbidding mountain passes had found his way to
the wild people of Central Europe.

On his back he carried a pack.

When he had spread his wares before the gaping curiosity of the
bewildered natives, their eyes beheld wonders of which their minds had
never dared to dream.

They saw bronze hammers and axes and tools made of iron and helmets made
of copper and beautiful ornaments consisting of a strangely colored
substance which the foreign visitor called "glass."

And overnight the Age of Stone came to an end.

It was replaced by a new civilization which had discarded wooden and
stone implements centuries before and had laid the foundations for that
"Age of Metal" which has endured until our own day.

It is of this new civilization that I shall tell you in the rest of my
book and if you do not mind, we shall leave the northern continent for a
couple of thousand years and pay a visit to Egypt and to western Asia.

"But," you will say, "this is not fair. You promise to tell us about
prehistoric man and then, just when the story is going to be