Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/681

Rh cold and hot. The men of the iron age in Europe were probably the Celts, conquered and described by the Romans. The Esquimaux, the Australian, and the North American Indian will probably never pass beyond the stone age, and will finally become extinct, the first from climate, and the last two from contact with superior races with which they cannot compete. It is most likely that the savage Ligurians and Iberians described by Cæsar as living in caves, and conquered by him, were the southern representatives of the old stone age, while the Finns and Lapps are the more modern and northern remains of the later stone age. The American Indians, the shepherds of Tartary, and the African races have no written history of their own; this has been attained only in comparatively recent times even by the civilized nations of Europe. From geographical causes the Tartars have always been migrating shepherds, occasionally uniting in formidable hosts, the scourges of more civilized races, as when eastern Europe was overrun by the hordes of Genghis Khan and Tamerlane.—For full information on the subject of archæology, the reader is referred to the writings of Christy, Lartet, Boucher de Perthes, and Quatrefages in France; Schaffhausen, Virchow, and Lindenschmit in Germany; Thomsen, Engelhardt, Steenstrup, and Nilsson in Denmark; Troyon, Keller, Morlot, Vogt, and Desor in Switzerland; Gastaldi, Canestrini, and Foresi in Italy; Schoolcraft, Squier, Foster, Davis, Whittlesey, and Wyman in the United States; Crawfurd, Prestwich, Boyd Dawkins, in England, and especially to Lyell's "Antiquity of Man," and Lubbock's "Prehistoric Times." For details on the stone age, see "Primitive Inhabitants of Scandinavia," by Sven Nilsson (London, 1868).  

ARCHÆOPTERYX (Gr., ancient, and , wing), the name given by Owen to the recently discovered long-tailed or reptilian bird of Solenhofen, one of the connecting links between the reptile and the bird, which made its appearance, as far as known, during the oolitic epoch of the Jurassic period. In the mesozoic age, not only the mammals but the birds had reptilian characters, and the earliest birds had long vertebrated tails. The tail in A. macrurus (Owen) was 11 inches long and 3$1⁄2$ wide; it consisted of 20 vertebræ, with a row of feathers along each side, the feathers being in pairs corresponding to the number of vertebræ, and diverging at an angle of 45°; the last pair extended backward nearly in the axis of the tail, and 3$1⁄2$ inches beyond it. The wing appears to have had a two-jointed finger, and its breadth was made by feathers as in birds, and not by an expanded membrane as in the pterodactyl and other flying reptiles; the feet were also like those of birds, and its body was covered with feathers. As we know comparatively little of the terrestrial reptiles of the triassic or preceding period of the mesozoic age, and very little of its bird-like forms beyond that afforded by the footprints in the Connecticut valley, it is expected by naturalists friendly to the doctrine of evolution that future researches will reveal birds more reptilian than the archæopteryx, and bird-like reptiles, which will go far toward filling the gap which now exists between reptiles and birds.  ARCHANGEL (Russ. Arkhangelsk). I. The northernmost government of European Russia, bounded N. by the White and Polar seas, E. by the Ural mountains, and S. and W. by Vologda, Olonetz, and Finland. It includes the islands of Nova Zembla, Vaygatch, Dolgoi, and Kolguyev, and has a continental area of about 290,000 sq. m., and an estimated total area of about 340,000 sq. m.; pop. in 1867, 275,779. It is watered by the Petchora, Mezen, Dwina, and Onega, all of which flow north. Lapps, Finns, and Samoyeds, many of them still heathen, form the native population, living independently among the conquering Russian settlers. The country is covered with immense forests. The soil yields vegetables, oats, barley, hemp, and flax. The principal towns besides the capital are Kola, Kem, Onega, Pinega, and Mezen. II. The capital of the preceding government, named after a monastery dedicated to the archangel Michael built there in 1584, situated on the river Dwina, 30 m. from its mouth in the White sea, 450 m. N.E. of St. Petersburg, in lat. 64° 32′ N., Ion. 40° 33′ E.; pop. in 1867, 20,178. It has a military and a civil governor, an archbishop, a high school or gymnasium, a navy yard, and several private ship yards. For nearly a century and a half, previous to the construction of St. Petersburg, Archangel was the principal and indeed the only mart of the Russian import and export trade. As early as the time of Queen Elizabeth English merchant ships occasionally entered the mouth of the Dwina, and they were soon followed by those of the Dutch and the German Hansa. The harbor is large and one of the best in northern Europe, though somewhat obstructed by a sand bank at the entrance. Archangel is still one of the principal points for the trade with the interior of Russia and with Siberia, the Dwina being connected by canals with the Volga, and thus with Moscow and Astrakhan. The ice disappears in April, and the navigation closes in September. The principal objects of trade are fish, fish oil, tallow, linseed, furs, 