Page:The Urantia Book, 1st Edition.djvu/812

 746 improved methods of treating skins for use as clothing, and weaving was later introduced by the teachers of art and science.

Great advances were made in methods of food storage. Food was preserved by cooking, drying, and smoking; it thus became the earliest property. Man was taught to provide for the hazards of famine, which periodically decimated the world.

2. The board of animal domestication and utilization. This council was dedicated to the task of selecting and breeding those animals best adapted to help human beings in bearing burdens and transporting themselves, to supply food, and later on to be of service in the cultivation of the soil. This able corps was directed by Bon.

Several types of useful animals, now extinct, were tamed, together with some that have continued as domesticated animals to the present day. Man had long lived with the dog, and the blue man had already been successful in taming the elephant. The cow was so improved by careful breeding as to become a valuable source of food; butter and cheese became common articles of human diet. Men were taught to use oxen for burden bearing, but the horse was not domesticated until a later date. The members of this corps first taught men to use the wheel for the facilitation of traction.

It was in these days that carrier pigeons were first used, being taken on long journeys for the purpose of sending messages or calls for help. Bon's group were successful in training the great fandors as passenger birds, but they became extinct more than thirty thousand years ago.

3. The advisers regarding the conquest of predatory animals. It was not enough that early man should try to domesticate certain animals, but he must also learn how to protect himself from destruction by the remainder of the hostile animal world. This group was captained by Dan.

The purpose of an ancient city wall was to protect against ferocious beasts as well as to prevent surprise attacks by hostile humans. Those living without the walls and in the forest were dependent on tree dwellings, stone huts, and the maintenance of night fires. It was therefore very natural that these teachers should devote much time to instructing their pupils in the improvement of human dwellings. By employing improved techniques and by the use of traps, great progress was made in animal subjugation.

4. The faculty on dissemination and conservation of knowledge. This group organized and directed the purely educational endeavors of those early ages. It was presided over by Fad. The educational methods of Fad consisted in supervision of employment accompanied by instruction in improved methods of labor. Fad formulated the first alphabet and introduced a writing system. This alphabet contained twenty-five characters. For writing material these early peoples utilized tree barks, clay tablets, stone slabs, a form of parchment made of hammered hides, and a crude form of paperlike material made from wasps' nests. The Dalamatia library, destroyed soon after the Caligastia disaffection, comprised more than two million separate records and was known as the "house of Fad."

The blue man was partial to alphabet writing and made the greatest progress along such lines. The red man preferred pictorial writing, while the yellow races drifted into the use of symbols for words and ideas, much like those they now employ. But the alphabet and much more was subsequently lost to the world