one time the monuments of Greece and Rome
claimed the almost undisputed attention of the archaeologist, that time
has long since passed. For the most important historical records that
have come to us in recent decades we have to thank the Orientalist,
though the classical explorer has been by no means idle. It will be
sufficient here to point out in general terms the import of the message
of archaeological discovery in the Victorian Era in its bearings upon
the great problems of world-history.

Chronology of ancient history.

A start was made through the efforts of the palaeontologists and
geologists, with only indirect or incidental aid from the
archaeologists. The new movement began actively with James Hutton in the
later years of the 18th century, and was forwarded by the studies of
William Smith in England and of Cuvier in France; but the really
efficient champion of the conception that the earth is very old was Sir
Charles Lyell, who published the first edition of his epoch-making
_Principles of Geology_ only a few years before Queen Victoria came to
the throne. Lyell demonstrated to the satisfaction, or--perhaps it
should rather be said--to the dissatisfaction, of his contemporaries
that the story of the geological ages as recorded in the strata of the
earth becomes intelligible only when vast stretches of time are
presupposed. Of course the demonstration was not accepted at once. On
the contrary, the champions of the tradition that the earth was less
than six thousand years old held their ground most tenaciously, and the
earlier years of the Victorian era were years of bitter controversy. The
result of the contest was never in doubt, however, for the geological
evidence, once it had been gathered, was unequivocal; and by about the
middle of the century it was pretty generally admitted that the age of
the earth must be measured by an utterly different standard from that
hitherto in vogue. This concession, however, by no means implied a like
change of view regarding the age of man. A fresh volume of evidence
required to be gathered, and a new controversy to be waged, before the
old data for the creation of man could be abandoned. Lyell again was in
the forefront of the progressive movement, and his work on _The
Antiquity of Man_, published in 1863, gave currency for the first time
to the new opinions. The evidence upon which these opinions were based
had been gathered by such anthropologists as Schmerling, Bo