EMPLOYMENT OF METALS BY PRIMITirE PEOPLE. 33S 



Julius Caesar, that the utilization of iron may be placed. 

 Archaeologists are tolerably unanimous in fixing what 

 has been designated the ' Stone Period,' at from five to 

 seven thousand years ; the 'Age of Bronze ' at from three 

 to four thousand years; and the 'Iron Age' at one 

 thousand years before our era. This last period, though 

 to many its commencement is shrouded in darkness, has 

 been pretty accurately determined by Swiss geologists, 

 who have based their calculations on the annual deposi- 

 tions produced by the torrent of Teniere, near Ville- 

 neuve, on the Lake of Geneva, and which cover the 

 most ancient human habitations containing iron that 

 have yet been explored.' These calculations have been 

 further supported by the very interesting discovery made 

 at Halstatt, in Austria, where more than nine hundred 

 graves of the people who in old times laboured in the 

 salt-mines there, were found. These contained, besides 

 large clay vases, glass ornaments, cinctures, metal slings, 

 swords, knives, lance-heads, and hatchets in bronze, similar 

 to the objects met with in the pre-Roman, Helvetic, and 

 Bisontine tombs. The same forms were reproduced in 

 iron ; so that it may be said this metal was abundant 

 with these people. Taking into account the complete 

 absence of lead and silver among these articles, — metals 

 which were largely employed during the reign of Philip 

 of Macedonia, four hundred years before the Christian 

 era, — M. Fournet estimates that the people who rest in 

 the tombs of Halstatt lived at the commencement of the 

 iron age, very likely between b.c. iooo and 500. Its 

 duration is marked by well-known historical events, and 



' Fournet. Le Mineur. 



