Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/722

704 weapons of stone which have been dug up in Sweden, and tells how archæologists have proved that such articles could be made without the use of metals. He sets forth also what information these relics afford as to the customs and habits of the people who made them. The graves belonging to the same period are also described. It appears that the Swedish common people of later times, finding these stone implements, called them "Thor's bolts," and regarded them as a sovereign protection against lightning-strokes and other disasters. "Even at the present day it is often impossible to induce people to sell antiquities of stone, because they believe that by so doing they lose a protective amulet." The articles which characterize the bronze age, extending from about 1500 to 500 were nearly all formed by casting; it is only toward the close of this period that traces of the use of the hammer in working the metal are found. While some effort toward ornamentation appears in the relics of the stone age, much more scope was given to this taste when metal came into use. The works of the earlier part of the bronze age are decorated with fine spirals and zigzag lines; those of the later part of this period do not display spirals of the same shape, but the ends of rings, knife-handles, etc., are often rolled up in spiral volutes. Prof. Montelius, in another work, has distinguished six subdivisions of the bronze age, but does not take space here to state the data on which they are based. Articles of horn, bone, wood, and leather, belonging to this period have been found, and even woolen clothing which had been buried in oak-tree coffins. The iron age is reckoned from 500 to near 1100  and is treated in four subdivisions. The author is convinced that the arts of working both iron and bronze were learned by the inhabitants of Sweden by intercourse with other nations, and not brought into the country by any immigration of a new people. The relics of this age which have been found are of great variety, and many of them bear decorative figures much more elaborate than those on the bronze implements, and include some very pleasing designs, while inlaying and plating with silver and gold were also practiced. A large number of stones bearing inscriptions in Runic letters date from this period. A map and two hundred and five cuts illustrate the text. Both this work and Dr. Molloy's "Gleanings in Science" would be more valuable to students if they were provided with indexes.

has an honorable and important field, A moment's reflection will call to mind a host of ways in which the character of the home acts upon the comfort, habits, health, dispositions, manners, morals, and culture of the inmates—directly by its effect upon them while at home, and perhaps indirectly by driving them to seek pleasure away from home. Much can be done to improve the character of the home by the teachings of a good magazine. A home modeled after the pattern of "The Home-Maker" would be a nice, comfortable, pretty, refined place, with much leisure and little care. Such a place would insure the wife and mother being always happy; would give the children soft and pleasant surroundings to grow up in, and would offer to the husband the most complete contrast to the hard, anxious struggle of his daily business. This magazine is adapted especially to ladies in comfortable circumstances who wish to know how to beautify their homes, and how to free housekeeping of its inconveniences. Nearly all the articles are adapted for their guidance or entertainment. But not all. The editor says that the masculine element is essential to the right composition of a home, and, beginning in the second number, this element is represented by a series of "Talks about Photography," by Mr. Alexander Black. The contents of the first number comprise editorials, an illustrated description of "Some Old Virginia Homesteads," two stories, a charade, some poetry, practical articles on "Birds and their Care" and "Cheap Living in Cities," and departments of house-work, fancy-work, games, the nursery, the care of the aged, household health, fashions, window-gardening, and book notices. The third issue is a Christmas number, and its contents are adapted to the season. Christine Terhune Herrick and Grace Peckham, M. D., are