I should have liked to tell the archaeologist of the human
beings--probably from their weapons and their habits--of the same
race as the present Laplanders, who passed northward as the ice went
back, following the wild reindeer herds from the South of France into
our islands, which were no islands then, to be in their turn driven
northward by stronger races from the east and south. But space
presses, and I fear that I have written too much already.
At least, I have turned over for you a few grand and strange pages in
the book of nature, and taught you, I hope, a key by which to
decipher their hieroglyphics. At least, I have, I trust, taught you
to look, as I do, with something of interest, even of awe, upon the
pebbles in the street.
III. THE STONES IN THE WALL
This is a large subject. For in the different towns of these
islands, the walls are built of stones of almost every age, from the
earliest to the latest; and the town-geologist may find a quite
different problem to solve in the nearest wall, on moving from one
town to another twenty miles off. All I can do, therefore, is to
take one set of towns, in the walls of which one sort of stones is
commonly found, and talk of them; taking care, of course, to choose a
stone which is widely distributed.
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