Part 4

A dead tree, dragged into a cave and lighted by means of smouldering branches from a burning forest filled the room with unusual but very pleasant heat.

Perhaps you will laugh. All these things seem so very simple. They are very simple to us because some one, ages and ages ago, was clever enough to think of them. But the first cave that was made comfortable by the fire of an old log attracted more attention than the first house that ever was lighted by electricity.

When at last, a specially brilliant fellow hit upon the idea of throwing raw meat into the hot ashes before eating it, he added something to the sum total of human knowledge which made the cave-man feel that the height of civilization had been reached.

Nowadays, when we hear of another marvelous invention we are very proud.

"What more," we ask, "can the human brain accomplish?"

And we smile contentedly for we live in the most remarkable of all ages and no one has ever performed such miracles as our engineers and our chemists.

Forty thousand years ago when the world was on the point of freezing to death, an unkempt and unwashed cave-man, pulling the feathers out of a half-dead chicken with the help of his brown fingers and his big white teeth--throwing the feathers and the bones upon the same floor that served him and his family as a bed, felt just as happy and just as proud when he was taught how the hot cinders of a fire would change raw meat into a delicious meal.

"What a wonderful age," he would exclaim and he would lie down amidst the decaying skeletons of the animals which had served him as his dinner and he would dream of his own perfection while bats, as large as small dogs, flew restlessly through the cave and while rats, as big as small cats, rummaged among the left overs.

Quite often the cave gave way to the pressure of the surrounding rock. Then man was hurled amidst the bones of his own victims.

Thousands of years later the anthropologist (ask your father what that means) comes along with his little spade and his wheelbarrow.

He digs and he digs and at last he uncovers this age-old tragedy and makes it possible for me to tell you all about it.

THE END OF THE STONE AGE

The struggle to keep alive during the cold period was terrible. Many races of men and animals, whose bones we have found, disappeared from the face of the earth.

Whole tribes and clans were wiped out by hunger and cold and want. First the children would die and then the parents. The old people were left to the mercy of the wild animals who hastened to occupy the undefended cave. Until another change in the climate or the slowly decreasing moisture of the air made life impossible for these wild invaders and forced them to find a retreat in the heart of the African jungle where they have lived ever since.

This part of my history is very difficult because the changes which I must describe were so very slow and so very gradual.

Nature is never in a hurry. She has all eternity in which to accomplish her task and she can afford to bring about the necessary changes with deliberate care.

Prehistoric man lived through at least four definite eras when the ice descended far down into the valleys and covered the greater part of the European continent.

The last one of these periods came to an end almost thirty thousand years ago.

From that moment on man left behind him concrete evidence of his existence in the form of tools and arms and pictures and in a general way we can say that history begins when the last cold period had become a thing of the past.

The endless struggle for life had taught the survivors many things.

Stone and wooden implements had become as common as steel tools are in our own days.

Gradually the rudely chipped flint axe had been replaced by one of polished flint which was infinitely more practical. It allowed man to attack many animals at whose mercy he had been since the beginning of time.

The mammoth was no longer seen.

The musk-ox had retreated to the polar circle.

The tiger had left Europe for good.

The cave-bear no longer ate little children.

The powerful brain of the weakest and most helpless of all living creatures--Man--had devised such terrible instruments of destruction that he was now the master of all the other animals.

The first great victory over Nature had been gained but many others were to follow.