406 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. XL 



the dawn of history in Italy. There is no longer any 

 reason for supposing that the civilised Mediterranean 

 peoples were dependent on the mines of Spain and 

 Britain for a supply of bronze. We have also explained 

 to us one of the causes of the wealth of the Etruskans. 

 Bronze must have been almost as valuable and quite as 

 beautiful as gold, and the most useful material for mak- 

 ing implements and weapons before the invention of 

 iron. The commerce, therefore, of the Mediterranean 

 world would inevitably be attracted to Tuscany, and 

 the products of the industries of Egypt, Assyria, and 

 Greece would be received in exchange for the bronze 

 articles for which the Etruskans became so famous. By 

 this discovery tin and copper are proved to occur in the 

 very region where they might reasonably be expected. 



It is very probable that the oldest tin mines worked 

 in Europe are those of Tuscany. Then' the natural 

 progress of discovery would lead the Phoenicians to the 

 exploration of the tin mines of the Eldorado of the West 

 the Iberian peninsula. And next, as the adventurous 

 sailors penetrated farther to the north, along the shores of 

 the ocean, the mines of Brittany and Cornwall would be 

 opened up. Those of Saxony and Bohemia and of 

 central France were probably developed, the one by the 

 energy of the Etruskan merchants, and the other by the 

 merchants of Massilia, or of the Phoenician Heraklea; 

 but they may have been worked by the natives before 

 the paths of commerce reached so far north. In France 

 the mines of Yilleder were worked in the Bronze age. 



None of these districts can lay claim to be the centre 

 in which tin was first worked and bronze was discovered. 

 The origin of bronze, like that of the use of polished 

 stone, has to be looked for in some other region. 



