e-brick and stone in architecture, which also
distinguished the Mexicans and their neighbours from the ruder tribes of
North and South America. All these ruder tribes, except the few already
mentioned as in the upper period of savagery, were somewhere within the
lower period of barbarism. Thus the Algonquins and Iroquois, the Creeks,
the Dakotas, etc., when first seen by white men, were within this
period; but some had made much further progress within it than others.
For example, the Algonquin tribe of Ojibwas had little more than emerged
from savagery, while the Creeks and Cherokees had made considerable
advance toward the middle status of barbarism.

[Footnote 27: See Shaler, "Physiography of North America," in
Winsor's _Narr. and Crit. Hist._ vol. iv. p. xiii.]

[Footnote 28: "No manure was used," says Mr. Parkman, speaking
of the Hurons, "but at intervals of from ten to twenty years,
when the soil was exhausted and firewood distant, the village
was abandoned and a new one built." _Jesuits in North America_,
p. xxx.]

[Sidenote: Middle status of barbarism.]

Let us now observe some characteristics of this extremely interesting
middle period. It began, we see, in the eastern hemisphere with the
domestication of other animals than the dog, and in the western
hemisphere with cultivation by irrigation and the use of adobe-brick and
stone for building. It also possessed another feature which
distinguished it from earlier periods, in the materials of which its
tools were made. In the periods of savagery hatchets and spear-heads
were made of rudely chipped stones. In the lower period of barbarism the
chipping became more and more skilful until it gave place to polishing.
In the middle period tools were greatly multiplied, improved polishing
gave sharp and accurate points and edges, and at last metals began to be
used as materials preferable to stone. In America the metal used was
copper, and in some spots where it was very accessible there were
instances of its use by tribes not in other respects above the lower
status of barbarism,--as for example, the "mound-builders." In the Old
World the metal used was the alloy of copper and tin familiarly known as
bronze, and in its working it called for a higher degree of intelligence
than copper.

[Sidenote: Working of metals.]

Toward the close of the middle period of barbarism the working of metals
became the m