Thus, his instance of the Eskimo as pushed
to the verge of habitable America, and therefore living in the
lowest depths of savagery, which, even if it were true, by no
means proved a general rule, was deprived of its force by the
simple fact that the Eskimos are by no means the lowest race on
the American continent, and that various tribes far more
centrally and advantageously placed, as, for instance, those in
Brazil, are really inferior to them in the scale of culture.
Again, his statement that "in Africa there appear to be no
traces of any time when the natives were not acquainted with the
use of iron," is met by the fact that from the Nile Valley to
the Cape of Good Hope we find, wherever examination has been
made, the same early stone implements which in all other parts
of the world precede the use of iron, some of which would not
have been made had their makers possessed iron. The duke also
tried to show that there were no distinctive epochs of stone,
bronze, and iron, by adducing the fact that some stone
implements are found even in some high civilizations.
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