count, and in 1863, at the age of forty-one, was able to retire from business in possession of "such a fortune as his ambition had never ventured to aspire to." Swedish, Polish, Arabic, and ancient and modern Greek had been acquired by the indefatigable linguist in the intervals of business, and after a two years' trip to India, China, and Japan, and round the world, Dr. Schliemann settled at Paris in 1866, with the purpose of devoting the rest of his life to study, and especially to archæology, his first and dearest love. His footsteps naturally turned to Greece, and at Athens he married a Greek lady who has proved a most valuable and sympathizing help-mate in his researches. Fired by his old enthusiasm for Homer, he then decided on a detailed exploration of the Troad, regarding it as the district where the richest prizes awaited the successful investigator, and the greatest number of vexed questions called for a satisfactory settlement. It is needless to allude, even, to the numberless volumes written on the Trojan war and the site of Troy, or the various contradictory theories broached to reconcile the alleged discrepancies between the Homeric narrative and the existing physical geography of the region. Strange as it seems, no one of the numerous disputants appears to have conceived the obvious truth, that a simple use of the spade would determine the facts of the ancient occupation of a given site more satisfactorily than the waste gallons of controversial ink. By this method of excavation Dr. Schliemann proved exhaustively that all the sites for the ancient city most favored by modern scholars were physically impossible. They offered not a shadow of evidence that they had ever been inhabited by any but slight or transitory settlements-presenting no analogy with the world-famed beleaguered city of Priam and Hector. One exception only remained, the site of the Greek colony of Ilium or New Troy, supposed by all antiquity to replace the ancient city, until the time of Strabo, when a new hypothesis was framed and gradually obtained acceptance. This is now represented by the Flill of Hissarlik. Standing at the very point of junction between the East and West, and in the region where is found the connecting link between the primitive Hellenic populations of Asia and Europe, the Hill of Hissarlik dominates over the alluvial plain of the Troad, forming in its present condition a vast carthen mound

about 100 feet high. Its appearance forcibly recalls the like condition of the old oriental capitols on the Tigris and the Euphrates, and, like them, it offers a reward for investigation never accepted until this late day. The natural advantages of the site resembled those of most of the early Greek settlements. A hill-fort, or acropolis, backed at a short distance by the snow-clad mountain chain of Ida, near but not close upon the sea, in a situation suited at once for defense against the neighboring barbarians, and for the development of an infant, though active, commercial intercourse with foreign countries, whence were derived the objects of distant origin, copper, ivory, etc., now occurring so plentifully among the débris of antiquity. This mound of Hissarlik was the scene of Dr. Schliemann's exertions for the best part of three years, 1871-3, and the main portion of his book is the record of the daily progress of his researches detailed with scrupulous fidelity.

Dr. Johnson said that the only great instance of the enjoyment of wealth that he had ever known was that of Mr. Dawkins, the discoverer of Palmyra, who, going to visit that city and hearing the way was infested with robbers, hired a troop of Turkish horse to guard him. A similar instance would have been furnished by the advantages enjoyed by Dr. Schliemann, fortunately for science. The contents of the mound were so anomalous, that if attacked in the ordinary way of travelers, it would have proved a mere chaos—a riddle full of strange meanings never to be read. But the possession of wealth, combined with zeal and perseverance, made all things plain and clear. All the ground that could be purchased, was bought, capable superintendents familiar with railway cuttings were engaged to overlook a hundred and fifty workmen with 88 wheelbarrows, 108 spades, 103 pickaxes, etc., all of the best English manufacture, so that more than sixty thousand dollars have been expended on the task. Pounds of quinine and quarts of arnica enabled him to bid defiance to marsh fevers and accidents, at the commencement of each season, when Dr. and Mrs. Schleimann settled down in their wooden-house at the summit of the mound, fully determined to thoroughly explore its mysterious and long buried contents.

It is difficult to explain briefly the progress of the researches, but the order of the discoveries made was this: The first objects of attack were the immense substructures of hewn stone, and remains of the Greek colony of Ilium, or New Troy, a city known to have flourished for a thousand years previous to its apparent desertion, or destruction, from some unknown cause, in the 3d or 4th century after Christ, and possibly containing 100,000 inhabitants. These ruins had for centuries formed a quarry for the neighborhood. The depth of soil now traceable to the existence of this great city was not more than six feet. One splendid piece of sculpture, a Melope from the Temple of the Sun, and the usual coins, weapons of bronze, etc., of classic times, were furnished by these deposits. Seven feet below, at a depth of thirteen feet from the surface, were found the remains of another city, built by an Aryan tribe (as shown by the symbols on their terra-cotta pottery), principally of wood, and to whom the use of bronze was unknown, as all the lances, battle-axes etc., discovered were of pure copper, though curiously enough they are accompanied by stone implements, splendidly polished axes, and hammers; and it is one of the most noticeable facts connected with Dr. Schliemann's discoveries, that these stone implements were found in every stratum (except the highest, or Grecian one), and must have been in use simultaneously with those made of metal. Numerous calcined layers of débris prove that the wooden Ilium was frequently devastated or destroyed by fire. and its inhabitants were in an inferior stage of civilization to that enjoyed by their predecessors, the remains of whose city were arrived at ten feet lower, or twenty-three feet from the surface. These people built with small stones cemented with earth, and sun-dried bricks. Stone weapons and implements predominate, though metal ones are found, as well as a peculiar type of black terra cotta vases. Ten feet lower down were reached the remains, now unhesitatingly referred to by Dr. Schliemann and by all competent scholars to the city whose siege forms the theme of the Iliad-but of this afterwards. Thirteen feet still lower, or six feet above the native rock, the earliest traces of settlement on this favored spot were arrived at. As their debris- extends from thirty to twenty feet in height, it may fairly be presumed

that the primitive people to whom they are owing were longer in duration than any of their successors. The chief remains they have left are stone implements, and pottery of superior quality, and marked Archaic character.

To return to the fourth (from the top), or Trojan stratum of ruins. The book itself must be referred to for accounts of the extraordinary remains here encountered, and the evidence so strangely conclusive of the identity of these fire-scorched and crumbling walls, towers, and terraces, with the long-looked-for city of Troy. Everything betokens a terrible catastrophe. All the indications of fiery destruction, rapine, and ruin are manifest; remains of houses, temples, fortifications, etc., buried in strata of red ashes of wood from five to ten feet thick, intermixed with scoriæ of melted lead and copper. Human bones and skeletons with copper helmets on their fleshless brows, metals welded together and stones crumbled by the fervent heat, and, to crown all, the "treasure," if wrongly named, of Priam, yet certainly the most cherished possession of royal owners, and unequaled in mere metallic value (we believe) by any similar ancient hoard or accumulation yet disclosed to the eye of the discoverer in any part of the Old or New World. How fearful must have been the conjuncture when it was abandoned by its defenders and yet not discovered by its assailants, is at once obvious. But the temptation to enlarge on such a theme must be resisted for want of room.

With our present notions of historic times the full purport and pregnant significance of these discoveries is hardly to be grasped. What competent scholars think of them is admirably summed up in the excellent letter of Professor Keller of Freiburgh given in a late number of The Nation. The numerous and influential partisans of the "Solar Myth" theory for the resolution of all early history into physical phenomena personified, are unwilling to find their cloud-land city based again on the solid earth, and perhaps Dr. Schliemann (who owns that Homer never could have seen the real Troy, and must have depended on tradition) is wrong in his names of persons and localities, as "Priam," "The Scean Gate" etc., but the reality and importance of his discoveries is undeniable, and they open to us chapter after chapter in the great book of the world's history, in a series perfectly unparalleled.