400 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xi. 



A second instance of the discovery of old tools in 

 British copper mines is offered by the surface workings 

 at Alderley Edge, 1 near Manchester, from which I 

 obtained in 1874 many stone hammers of the same 

 kind as those mentioned above, along with stone wedges. 

 Similar instruments occur in the copper mines in Spain. 2 

 In those at Cordova flint implements, and picks made 

 of stags' antler, have been met with, resembling those 

 found in the Neolithic flint mines of Cissbury and 

 Brandon, as well as stone hammers of the kind found in 

 Britain. We may therefore conclude that copper was 

 worked in Spain and Britain, and proba,bly also in 

 many other countries on the Continent, as far back as 

 the Bronze age. When once the art of reducing the 

 ores became known, they would be worked wherever 

 they were discovered. It is interesting to remark that 

 the hammers found in the European mines are of the 

 same form as those used by the Ked Indians in working 

 the native copper of Lake Superior. 



Tin-stone frequently associated with Gold. 



The tin-stone (oxide of tin) or cassiterite is not con- 

 spicuous, like copper, for its brilliancy of colour, being 

 brown, yellowish-green, sometimes opaque and some- 

 times transparent, and it is remarkably limited in its 

 distribution in Europe. It occurs in the granitic and 

 highly altered crystalline rocks, in veins disseminated 

 through the mass ; or where the rocks have been worn 

 away by frost, rain, and rivers, it is found in irregular 



1 Journ. Anthrop. InsL v. p. 1. 



2 Materiaux, 1867, p. 100. Simonin, La Vie Souterraine, p. 481 (Fig. 

 132). 



