FOSSIL MEN. 



America it is making its way to-day in direct conflict 

 with the age of Stone among the more remote tribes. 

 When we speak, therefore, of the Iron, Bronze, and 

 Stone Ages, it is useless, if we wish to attach any 

 definite meaning to our language, to extend its ap- 

 plication beyond the temperate latitudes of Western 

 Europe. 



Copper, and bronze, the alloy of copper and tin, 

 were in prevalent use before iron* ; and bronze, with 

 its ingredients well proportioned, was no bad sub- 

 stitute for the most useful of metals, having the 

 advantage besides of not perishing by rust, and of 

 being easily molten into any required shape. The 

 Bronze Age precedes the date of written history in 

 Western Europe, though in the East it is coeval with 

 the early Bible history, and in Greece it reaches to the 

 Trojan war. It attained its acme before the Roman 

 legions had swept over the European plains, when the 

 civilising element was mainly represented by Phoe- 

 nician traders visiting the coasts, and when the rude 

 primeval tribes were shaping themselves into nations, 

 and acquiring the arts of life from the more cultivated 

 peoples of the south and east. As in the case of the 

 Iron Age, we can attach no definite limits to its 



* It would seem that in Africa and elsewhere iron may have 

 been used as early as or earlier than bronze, in consequence 

 of the occurrence of iron ores easily reduced. For this reason, 

 Virchow, quoted with approval by Tylor in an address de- 

 livered at the Sheffield meeting of the British Association, 

 has proposed to merge the Bronze and Iron Ages in a " Metal 

 Age." 



