PARISH OF RUDSTONE. 267 



early ages fire was obtained by such a process may have suggested 

 itself to many, as it had indeed to myself, . still, before this 

 discovery of the ' flint and steel ' unmistakeably adapted and also 

 used for that purpose, there was no tangible evidence of the fact. 

 This evidence seems now to be supplied by the contents of the 

 present barrow ; for not only were the two materials the flint 

 and the iron pyrites found in such juxtaposition as to imply 

 connection the one with the other, but both by their appearance 

 clearly indicate the nature of that connection and mutual use ; the 

 bruised and smoothened edges and ends of the flints and the grooved 

 surface of the pyrites showing tokens of long-continued reciprocal 

 friction. It is true that certain ores of iron have long been 

 employed by savage tribes as a source from which to obtain a red 

 pigment, whether for their own personal adornment or for colouring 

 articles of dress and implements, but the particular ore to which 

 the nodules under notice belong is not adapted for producing any 

 pigment when in a fresh and unoxidised condition ; neither are 

 the appearances of wear upon the pyrites those that would have 

 resulted from a scraping process necessary in the preparation of 

 such a substance. There certainly are the marks of what may 

 perhaps be called scraping along the middle of the fractured surface 

 of the nodules ; but that is just the part where the ore would be 

 quite fresh and unoxidised, and therefore the least available for use 

 as providing a pigment. The marks in question have no doubt 

 been made, as has already been mentioned, by rubbing the flint 

 rapidly across the flat surface in the process of obtaining the 

 required spark. The value of the evidence is further enhanced 

 by the fact that like articles occurred in connection with two 

 separate interments under precisely similar circumstances and with 

 exactly identical appearances of use upon them. It might naturally 

 be expected that a people who had so far progressed in civilisation, 

 as the various remains belonging to the bronze period attest that 

 the inhabitants of Britain had at that time arrived, would have 

 attained to some better mode of producing fire than the tedious 

 process of rubbing two sticks together, or even by the use of a fire 

 drill . There was however no evidence to show in what improved 

 way so important an essential to human existence, especially in 

 a climate like ours, might have been obtained at the time in 

 question, until this important discovery in the barrow at Rudstone 

 supplied the interesting fact. It might seem strange that a people 

 who were dealing in this manner with an ore of iron should not 



