SIMILARITY OF BRONZE IMPLEMENTS. 61 



of copper are extremely rare ; Hungary and Ireland, indeed, 

 have been supposed to form partial exceptions to this rule. 

 The geographical position of the former country is probably 

 a sufficient explanation ; and as far as Ireland in concerned, 

 it may perhaps be worth while to examine how far that 

 country really forms an exception. In the great Museum at 

 Dublin there are 725 celts and celt-like chisels, 282 swords 

 and daggers, and 276 lances, javelins, and arrow-heads ; 

 yet out of these 1283 weapons only 30 celts and one sword- 

 blade are said to be of pure copper.* I say " are said to be," 

 because they have not been analyzed, but are supposed to 

 be copper only from the " physical properties and ostensible 

 colour of the metal : " indeed one of these very celts, which 

 was actually analyzed by Mr. Mallet, was found to contain a 

 small percentage of tin. It is possible that for some of the 

 purposes to which celts were applied, copper may have been 

 nearly as useful as bronze, and at any rate it might some- 

 times have happened that, from a deficiency of tin, some 

 implements would be made of copper only. 



M. De Pulszky has questioned this opinion expressed in the 

 earlier editions of this work, on the ground that if the existence 

 of objects of copper were due to the occasional absence of tin, 

 the types of the copper objects ought to be the same as those 

 of bronze. To show that this is not so, he gives the follow- 

 ing interesting table of the copper and bronze objects in the 

 Museum at Buda-Pesth : 



Copper. Bronze. 



Coins et haches a rebords 51 18 



Haches a ailerons 1 79 



Haches a douille 186 



Ciseaux 37 



Gouges 5 



* One even of these is with good reason considered by Dr. Wilde to 

 be an American specimen. 



