THE WORLD GROWS COLD
I. END OF THE STONE AGE
II. THE EARLIEST SCHOOL OF THE HUMAN RACE
III. THE KEY OF STONE
IV. THE LAND OF THE LIVING AND THE LAND OF THE
V. DEAD
VI. THE MAKING OF A STATE
VII. THE RISE AND FALL OF EGYPT
VIII. MESOPOTAMIA--THE COUNTRY BETWEEN THE
IX. RIVERS
X. THE SUMERIAN NAIL WRITERS
XI. ASSYRIA AND BABYLONIA--THE GREAT SEMITIC
XII. MELTING-POT
XIII. THE STORY OF MOSES
XIV. JERUSALEM--THE CITY OF THE LAW
XV. DAMASCUS--THE CITY OF TRADE
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XVI. THE PHOENICIANS WHO SAILED BEYOND THE
XVII. HORIZON
THE ALPHABET FOLLOWS THE TRADE
THE END OF THE ANCIENT WORLD
PREHISTORIC MAN
It took Columbus more than four weeks to sail from Spain to the
West Indian Islands. We on the other hand cross the ocean in
sixteen hours in a flying machine.
Five hundred years ago, three or four years were necessary to
copy a book by hand. We possess linotype machines and rotary
presses and we can print a new book in a couple of days.
We understand a great deal about anatomy and chemistry and
mineralogy and we are familiar with a thousand different
branches of science of which the very name was unknown to the
people of the past.
In one respect, however, we are quite as ignorant as the most
primitive of men--we do not know where we came from. We do
not know how or why or when the human race began its career
upon this Earth. With a million facts at our disposal we are still obliged to follow the example of the fairy-stories and begin in
the old way:
"Once upon a time there was a man."
This man lived hundreds of thousands of years ago.
What did he look like?
We do not know. We never saw his picture. Deep in the clay of
an ancient soil we have sometimes found a few pieces of his
skeleton. They were hidden amidst masses of bones of animals
that have long since disappeared from the face of the earth. We
have taken these bones and they allow us to reconstruct the
strange creature who happens to be our ancestor.
The great-great-grandfather of the human race was a very ugly
and unattractive mammal. He was quite small. The heat of the
sun and the biting wind of the cold winter had colored his skin a dark brown. His head and most of his body were covered with
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long hair. He had very thin but strong fingers which made his
hands look like those of a monkey. His forehead was low and
his jaw was like the jaw of a wild animal which uses its teeth
both as fork and knife.
He wore no
clothes. He had
seen no fire
except the
flames of the
rumbling
volcanoes
which filled the
earth with their
smoke and
their lava.
He lived in the
damp
blackness of
vast forests.
When he felt
the pangs of
hunger he ate
raw leaves and
the roots of
plants or he
stole the eggs
from the nest
of an angry
bird.
Once in a
while, after a
long and
patient chase,
he managed to
catch a sparrow or a small wild dog or perhaps a rabbit These
he would eat raw, for prehistoric man did not know that food
could be cooked.
His teeth were large and looked like the teeth of many of our
own animals.
During the hours of day this primitive human being went about
in search of food for himself and his wife and his young.
At night, frightened by the noise of the beasts, who were in
search of prey, he would creep into a hollow tree or he would
hide himself behind a few big boulders, covered with moss and
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great, big spiders.
In summer he was exposed to the scorching rays of the sun.
During the winter he froze with cold.
When he hurt himself (and hunting animals are for ever
breaking their bones or spraining their ankles) he had no one to
take care of him.
He had learned how to make certain sounds to warn his fellow-
beings whenever danger threatened. In this he resembled a dog
who barks when a stranger approaches. In many other respects
he was far less attractive than a well-bred house pet.
Altogether, early man was a miserable creature who lived in a
world of fright and hunger, who was surrounded by a thousand
enemies and who was for ever haunted by the vision of friends
and relatives who had been eaten up by wolves and bears and
the terrible sabre-toothed tiger.
Of the earliest history of this man we know nothing. He had no
tools and he built no homes. He lived and died and left no
traces of his existence. We keep track of him through his bones
and they tell us that he lived more than two thousand centuries
ago.
The rest is darkness.
Until we reach the time of the famous Stone Age, when man
learned the first rudimentary principles of what we call
civilization.
Of this Stone Age I must tell you in some detail.
THE WORLD GROWS COLD
Something was the matter with the weather.
Early man did not know what "time" meant.
He kept no records of birthdays and wedding-anniversaries or
the hour of death.
He had no idea of days or weeks or years.
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When the sun arose in the morning he did not say "Behold
another day." He said "It is Light" and he used the rays of the early sun to gather food for his family.
When it grew dark, he returned to his wife and children, gave
them part of the day's catch (some berries and a few birds),
stuffed himself full with raw meat and went to sleep.
In a very general way he kept track of the seasons. Long
experience had taught him that the cold Winter was invariably
followed by the mild Spring--that Spring grew into the hot
Summer when fruits ripened and the wild ears of corn were
ready to be plucked and eaten. The Summer ended when gusts
of wind swept the leaves from the trees and when a number of
animals crept into their holes to make ready for the long
hibernal sleep.
It had always
been that way.
Early man
accepted these
useful changes
of cold and
warm but asked
no questions.
He lived and
that was
enough to
satisfy him.
Suddenly,
however,
something
happened that
worried him
greatly.
The warm days
of Summer had
come very late.
The fruits had
not ripened at
all. The tops of
the mountains
which used to
be covered with
grass lay
deeply hidden
under a heavy
burden of snow.
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Then one morning quite a number of wild people, different from
the other inhabitants of his valley had approached from the
region of the high peaks.
They muttered sounds which no one could understand. They
looked lean and appeared to be starving. Hunger and cold
seemed to have driven them from their former homes.
There was not enough food in the valley for both the old
inhabitants and the newcomers. When they tried to stay more
than a few days there was a terrible fight and whole families
were killed. The others fled into the woods and were not seen
again.
For a long time nothing occurred of any importance.
But all the while, the days grew shorter and the nights were
colder than they ought to have been.
Finally, in a gap between the two high hills, there appeared a
tiny speck of greenish ice. It increased in size as the years went by. Very slowly a gigantic glacier was sliding down the slopes of the mountain ridge. Huge stones were being pushed into the
valley. With the noise of a dozen thunderstorms they suddenly
tumbled among the frightened people and killed them while
they slept. Century-old trees were crushed into kindling wood by
the high walls of ice that knew of no mercy to either man or
beast.
At last, it began to snow.
It snowed for months and months and months.
All the plants died. The animals fled in search of the southern
sun. The valley became uninhabitable. Man hoisted his children
upon his back, took the few pieces of stone which he had used
as a weapon and went forth to find a new home.
Why the world should have grown cold at that particular
moment, we do not know. We can not even guess at the cause.
The gradual lowering of the temperature, however, made a
great difference to the human race.
For a time it looked as if every one would die. But in the end
this period of suffering proved a real blessing. It killed all the weaker people and forced the survivors to sharpen their wits
lest they perish, too.
Placed before the choice of hard thinking or quick dying the
same brain that had first turned a stone into a hatchet now
solved difficulties which had never faced the older generations.
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In the first
place, there was
the question of
clothing. It had
grown much too
cold to do
without some
sort of artificial
covering. Bears
and bisons and
other animals
who live in
northern regions
are protected
against snow
and ice by a
heavy coat of
fur. Man
possessed no
such coat. His
skin was very
delicate and he
suffered greatly.
He solved his
problem in a
very simple
fashion. He dug
a hole and he
covered it with
branches and
leaves and a
little grass. A bear came by and fell into this artificial cave. Man waited until the creature was weak from lack of food and then
killed him with many blows of a big stone. With a sharp piece of
flint he cut the fur of the animal's back. Then he dried it in the sparse rays of the sun, put it around his own shoulders and
enjoyed the same warmth that had formerly kept the bear
happy and comfortable.
Then there was the housing problem. Many animals were in the
habit of sleeping in a dark cave. Man followed their example and
searched until he found an empty grotto. He shared it with bats
and all sorts of creeping insects but this he did not mind. His
new home kept him warm and that was enough.
Often, during a thunderstorm a tree had been hit by lightning.
Sometimes the entire forest had been set on fire. Man had seen
these forest-fires. When he had come too near he had been
driven away by the heat. He now remembered that fire gave
warmth.
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Thus far, fire had been an enemy.
Now it became a friend.
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
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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.
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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.
Equipped with a full set of tools both for hunting and fishing,
the cave-dweller looked for new living quarters.
The shores of rivers and lakes offered the best opportunity for a regular livelihood.
The old caves were deserted and the human race moved toward
the water.
Now that man could handle heavy axes, the felling of trees no
longer offered any great difficulties.
For countless ages birds had been constructing comfortable
houses out of chips of wood and grass amidst the branches of
trees.
Man followed their example.
He, too, built himself a nest and called it his "home."
He did not, except in a few parts of Asia, take to the trees
which were a bit too small and unsteady for his purpose.
He cut down a number of logs. These he drove firmly into the
soft bottom of a shallow lake. On top of them he constructed a
wooden platform and upon this platform he erected his first
wooden house.
It offered many advantages over the old cave.
No wild animals could break into it and robbers could not enter
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it. The lake itself was an inexhaustible store-room containing an endless supply of fresh fish.
These houses built on piles were much healthier than the old
caves and they gave the children a chance to grow up into
strong men. The population increased steadily and man began
to occupy vast tracts of wilderness which had been unoccupied
since the beginning of time.
And all the time new inventions were made which made life
more comfortable and less dangerous.
Often enough these innovations were not due to the cleverness
of man's brain.
He simply copied the animals.
You know of course that there are a large number of beasties
who prepare for the long winter by burying nuts and acorns and
other food which is abundant during the summer. Just think of
the squirrels who are for ever filling their larder in gardens and parks with supplies for the winter and the early spring.
Early man, less intelligent in many respects than the squirrels,
had not known how to preserve anything for the future.
He ate until his hunger was stilled, but what he did not need
right away he allowed to rot. As a result he often went without
his meals during the cold period and many of his children died
from hunger and want.
Until he followed the example of the animals and prepared for
the future by laying in sufficient stores when the harvest had
been good and there was an abundance of wheat and grain.
We do not know which genius first discovered the use of pottery
but he deserves a statue.
Very likely it was a woman who had got tired of the eternal
chores of the kitchen and wanted to make her household duties
a little less exacting. She noticed that chunks of clay, when
exposed to the rays of the sun, got baked into a hard
substance.
If a flat piece of clay could be transformed into a brick, a
slightly curved piece of the same material must produce a
similar result.
And behold, the brick grew into a piece of pottery and the
human race was able to save for the day of tomorrow.
If you think that my praises of this invention are exaggerated,
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look at the breakfast table and see what pottery, in one form
and the other, means in your own life.
Your oatmeal is served in a dish.
The cream is served from a pitcher.
Your eggs are carried from the kitchen to the dining-room table
on a plate.
Your milk is brought to you in a china mug. Then go to the
store-room (if there is no store-room in your house go to the
nearest Delicatessen store). You will see how all the things
which we are supposed to eat tomorrow and next week and next
year have been put away in jars and cans and other artificial
containers which Nature did not provide for us but which man
was forced to invent and perfect before he could be assured of
his regular meals all the year around.
Even a gas-tank is nothing but a large pitcher, made of iron
because iron does not break as easily as china and is less
porous than clay. So are barrels and bottles and pots and pans.
They all serve the same purpose--of providing us in the future
with those things of which we happen to have an abundance at
the present moment.
And because he could preserve eatable things for the day of
need, man began to raise vegetables and grain and saved the
surplus for future consumption.
This explains why, during the late Stone Age, we find the first
wheat-fields and the first gardens, grouped around the
settlements of the early pile-dwellers.
It also tells us why man gave up his habit of wandering and
settled down in one fixed spot where he raised his children until the day of his death when he was decently buried among his
own people.
It is safe to say that these earliest ancestors of ours would
have given up the ways of savages of their own accord if they
had been left to their fate.
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.
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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
con