, are more finely
chipped or flaked, and are frequently polished by rubbing on
stone moulds. There is no sudden leap in culture or intelligence
in the story of man.
It would be supremely interesting to trace the evolution of human
industries and ideas during the few tens of thousands of years of
the New Stone Age. During that time moral and religious ideas are
largely developed, political or social forms are elaborated, and
the arts of civilised man have their first rude inauguration. The
foundations of civilisation are laid. Unfortunately, precisely
because the period is relatively so short and the advance so
rapid, its remains are crushed and mingled in a thin seam of the
geological chronicle, and we cannot restore the gradual course of
its development with any confidence. Estimates of its duration
vary from 20,000 to 70,000 years; though Sir W. Turner has
recently concluded, from an examination of marks on Scottish
monuments, that Neolithic man probably came on foot from
Scandinavia to Scotland, and most geologists would admit that it
must be at least a hundred thousand years since one could cross
from Norway to Scotland on foot.
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