By William Long, Esq. 177 



(of Britain) anterior to the Roman dominion/' derives nothing but 

 confirmation from subsequent researches. 



" The only graves hitherto opened in England^ certainly of the 

 Iron age and at the same time pre-Roman, are met with, not as we 

 might have expected, in the southern counties, where the finest 

 objects of the Bronze age are found, but far away to the North 

 of the Humber. A large group of tumuli at Arras and Hessleskew, 

 in the East Biding, yielded the remains of chariot wheels and axles 

 of iron, with bronze and iron trappings for the horses, including four 

 iron bits, two of them plated with bronze. A shield, with a bronze 

 boss, had its rim of iron. The bodies, all unburnt, were in the con- 

 tracted posture, and with them were ornaments of bronze, jet, amber, 

 ivory, and glass, the beads of this last material remarkable for their 

 beauty and size. There was also a fine finger-ring of gold. 



" So far as researches in the tumuli have gone, they show that 

 the bronze civilization of Britain commenced on its southern shores,^ 



' According to Sir John Lubbock's analysis, interments accompanied by stone 

 implements, in Derbyshire barrows, were nearly four times as frequent as those 

 with bronze. Dr. Thurnam hence infers that the southern tribes were better 

 and more early provided with bronze than the northern, and that the use of 

 weapons and implements of this metal commenced on the southern coasts, and 

 was thence gradually spread over the interior and north of the island, (p. 158.) 

 " Tin is the most remaikable of all the metallic products which Phoenicia 

 obtained from Tarshish, because it is found in so few parts of the world. Only 

 three countries are known to contain any considerable quantities of it : Spain 

 and Portugal ; Cornwall and the adjacent part of Devonshire ; and the islands 

 of Junk -Ceylon and Banca, in the straits of Malacca. [That tin should have 

 been brought into the countries bordering on the Mediterranean from the remote 

 islands of the Straits of Malacca, at the very early age at which its use is as- 

 ceitaiued, is highly improbable. No such traffic is ever alluded to by ancient 

 writers.] It is so soft a metal that of itself it is of little use ; but it readily 

 combines with others, and particularly with copper, giving it the hardness 

 which is needed for tools and instruments of war. As it is easily fusible, and 

 ■in all the countries in which it has been found appears on the surface, in frag- 

 ments derived from the detritus of primitive rocks, it would be early discovered 

 and employed. Bronze, which is one of the oldest of the alloys of copper we 

 are acquainted with, contains about ten or twelve per cent, of tin ; and it is 

 remarkable that nearly.the same proportions result from the analysis of the 

 bronze instruments found in the sepulchral barrows of Europe ; of the nails 

 which fastened the plates with which the Treasury of Atreus, at Myoenas, was 

 covered ; of the instruments contained in the tombs of Ancient Egypt ; and the 

 YOL. XVI. NO. XLVI. N 



