410 -Em when Brass was used [Dec. 



people of Greece, Egypt, &c. did, at some period of their his- 

 tory, make their edge-tools of bronze, is sufficiently plain from 

 the use they made of them in reHgious matters, and from 

 their being frequently found in the ruins of their most ancient 

 cities : but they were fallen into disuse in the reign of Porsenna, 

 500 years before Christ.* And it is probable that the nations 

 on the western side of Europe, long before the commencement 

 of the Christian era, had begun to disuse brass in arms, because 

 we know that in the time of Caius Marius, the Cimbrian cavalry 

 wore steel cuirasses ; and that the people of Gaul, Spain, and 

 Britain, were acquainted with the art of manufacturing iron in 

 Caesar's time. 



6. The era in which edge-tools of bronze were in use in Bri- 

 tain, cannot perhaps be ascertained with any degree of certainty. 

 There can be no reason to suppose that iron was introduced 

 here while bronze was used in Greece : or that the Germans 

 should be acquainted with it before the Britons. But when iron 

 became plentiful amongst the Greeks, as it unquestionably was 

 in the time of Lycurgus, 900 years before Christ, it would cer- 

 tainly be cheaper amongst the Phoenicians than either copper or 

 tin : if, therefore, they traded to Britain at that time, it would 

 be their interest to barter steel for the goods they came for; and 

 that of the Britons to receive it for edge-tools, in preference to 

 copper. The disuse of bronze tools, and the introduction of 

 iron ones into this country, was probably gradual. But from 

 the above reasons, I would conclude that bronze began to give 

 way to iron here, nearly as soon as it did in Greece ; and, con- 

 sequently, that all the Celts, spear-heads, swords, &c. found in 

 our island, belong to an sera 500, or at least 400 years before the 

 time of Christ, for iron then seems to have been general among 

 all the people along the shores of the Mediterranean Sea. 



7. Tne circumstance of implements similar to our Celts hav- 

 ing been found in Herculaneum, merely proves that the scite of 

 that city was once tenanted by men ignorant of the use of iron ; 

 and we know from Dionysius Halicarnassensis, that it was 

 founded about thirty years before the Trojan war. Also the 

 various culinary and kitchen implements of bronze that abound 

 in its ruins, prove nothing more than that the ancients had dis- 

 covered that in warm climates copper or bronze is better adapted 



• Since this paper was written, I have found a reference to bronze weapons in Pliny. 

 Speaking of the medicinal qualities of iron, he says : — '•' Estct rubigo ipsa in remediis : 

 et sic Telephum proditur sanasse Achilles, sive id area, sive ferrea cuspide fecit. Ita 

 certe pingitur dicutiens earn gladio." He doubted whether this healing rust was scraped 

 off a bronze or an iron sword, because he knew that in the heroic age, bronze was in use 

 in weapons. He could have hwl no difficulty in concluding that it was not of bronze, 

 from any use to which that metal was applied in arms in his time ; for his own accounts 

 of iron sufficiently refute such a notion ; and in the chapter from which this extract is 

 taken, he says:—" Medecina e ferro estet alia, quam secandi," from which it is plain 

 that surgical instruments were made of it in his time— Nat. Hist, xxxiv. 15. Hygin. 

 101. Paua. Arc. Ixv. 4. Ovid. Metam. xiii. 172, Trist. v. 2, 15. Remed. Am. 

 47, &c. 



