SPARE HALF HOURS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1966, 29 October 1891, Page 43

SPARE HALF HOURS.

By F. A. Joseph.

THE CRADLE OF THE RACE. 11. The study of philology points to one anoient and widely extended division of the human race, which has been called Aryan by Professor Max Muller. By some "writers this grand division of the human family has been designated the Indo-European family, but the latter term is not comprehensive enough, as the representatives of the Aryan division of the human race embraces seven European groups of languages. These are the Hellenic, Italic, Celtic, Teutonic, Slavonic, Lithuanic, or Lettic, and Albunian. Aryan speech, in faot, embraces all the languages of Europe, excepting Basque, Finnic, Magyar, and Turkish. There are also three closely allied Asiatic groups, and these are the Indie, comprising fourteen modern Indian languages derived from Sanskrit, the Iranic, comprising Tend, Persian, Pushtu, or Afghan, Baluchi, Kurdish, ana Ossetic; and last, the Armenian, which is intermediate between Greek and Iranian. All of these languages are derived from the ancient Aryan, of which Sanskrit is one of the ancient derived languages, as also is Greek at a later stage. But the Aryan language had attained the dignity of a highly inflected form of language long enough, in all probability, before the invention of the Sanskrit written character. Where, then, did this ancient Aryan race which has left its traces in so marked a manner over so wide an area, have its ancient home ? The East, as already mentioned, has generally been considered the cradle of the human race; but of late scientific men have been turning towards Europe to search for the home of the ancient Aryans, It might be considered a hopeless task to endeavour to find out anything of an ancient race which has left little behind but a few stray relics in the kitchen middens scattered over the country ; yet by resorting to comparative methods we can learn much. The key to the inquiry is found in the persistence of race. Embedded, so to speak, in the changing character of animal growth, is the principle of fixity of type. The paleontologist pusuing his researches among the skeletons of extinct animals finds amid the ruins' of families and species a certain type, which may in the end change so as to majse the connection between the extremes almost imperceptible, yet all along the line there will be a certain type in outline. Thus in Australia, the home of the marsupial type of animal, running through several geologic periods, we find the marsupial type changing materially as time rolls on, but still marsupial, until we see the type still clinging to such animals as the kangaroo and the duck-mole-r-in the oase of the I latter scarcely recognisable. Then again, in i New Zealand, the land of the flightless birds, we find that the extinct birds were ; mostly of that type. In like manner among races of men nothing changes so slowly as racial type. Let us briefly examine the subject of the home of the Aryans from this standpoint. ArchsßOlogists have found it convenient, at any rate in dealing with anoient races, to divide them into three main divisions, repre- | senting distinct periods in their advancement. There Is first the stone age, in which the savage employed weapons of stone ; then the bronze age; and last the iron age. The different ages were naturally different in different- countries. Greece had advanced to the iron age, while Italy wassjjill in the bronze period, and therest of Europe in the age of stone. Bronze was used by the people on the shores of the Mediterranean long bef oreit reached the Baltic ; and when the Canary Islands were discovered by the Spaniards in the fifteenth century the Guanches were still in the stone age. In our .inquiry we will only require to deal with the stone age. The age of stone has to be divided into two periods, which mark two very distinct states of civilisation. There is the old stone period of chipped flints, and the new stone period of polished stone. The rude race which knew no better weapon than a flake of chipped flint was infinitely more barbarous than the race which made weapons and implements of polished stone. The New Zealand Maori belonged to the new stone age, bringing his knowledge with him from his ancient Malasian home. Our knowledge of the Maori will materially help us in arriving at a conception of the condition of the ancient Aryan of the new stone period. Fine art is noS unknown among the Maoris, for their carvings are marvels of art, and in their tatooing and other things they show a wonderf al conception of the beautiful. The ancient Aryan who inhabited Europe during the new stone period displayed some artistic skill also, as the carvings on stag horns and other lasting material found in the cave dwellings bear witness to. In the age of chipped flint 3in Europe man was the contemporary of the cave bear, the mammoth, and the woolly rhinoceros. The climate was severe, the distribution of land and water was different from what it is now ; pottery even of the rudest type was unknown ; the people were nomadic hunters, who dwelt in caves or rock shelters. In the age of polished stone we see a distinct advance, and the distribution of land and water was pretty much the same as it is now. Caves were used for burying the dead rather than for habitations ; some animals had been domesticated ; pottery was used ; and altogether we see a race far on the way to civilisation as compared with the man of the age of chipped flint. What period of time separates the race which knew no better material than chipped flint for weapons and the race which made use of polished stone, it would be hard to estimate.! In the interval the dry land which joined the British Isles to the continent of Europe had I so far subsided as to form a shallow sea and j to form an effective barrier between the two j divisions of land. From that day out the types of animals in the British Isles and on the Continent began to diverge. Long ages not easily reckoned in years are represented j by this change in the configuration of the land.

Hundreds of personi inffar from bolli, carbunolea, , and other eruptive diseases. These are evidenced that the lystem is trying to purge itaelf of impurltlei, and that it need* the pow.erfel aid of Ayer'i Sarsaparilla.