664 ON THE THREE PERIODS KNOWN AS 



enough to find a Saxon burial with iron and bronze both in the 

 superficial layers of such barrows, but the * superficial position of 

 such burials shows their posteriority in point of date. The central 

 interment at the bottom of the barrow on or sunk into the natural 

 soil, may or may not contain a bronze dagger, may or may not 

 contain weapons of flint, survivals from, and religious or ceremonial 

 reminiscences of, the Stone Age, may or may not contain vessels of 

 pottery, may contain a skeleton in the contracted position, or burnt 

 bones either in an urn, or in a case of bark, or simply naked in the 

 earth (I have seen all these cases) ; but it has never contained any 

 shred of iron within my experience, nor, as I believe, within that of 

 any person who can be trusted to distinguish between a primary 

 and a secondary interment. 



It will be said by some in answer to this that iron is oxidizable 

 and perishable in an eminent degree, and that it would disappear 

 whilst the bronze would remain. This suggestion I will not 

 characterize as one of the study as opposed to one of the barrow, 

 but as one of the laboratory, and the laboratory with its strong 

 reagents supports it in a way that the slow and weak or wholly 

 inert chemistry of the deep sand, or rubble, or gravel-filled grave 

 does not. Of course, if you conceive a stream of water, acidulated 

 even slightly with nitric acid, to pass constantly over an iron 

 spear-head, there is no difficulty in estimating the time which will 

 be necessary for the entire disappearance of an implement so tested. 

 But no such agent is available in many, I might say most, Bronze 

 Period graves. In some such graves you may find the objects they 

 contain encrusted with a deposit of carbonate of lime, which would 

 have protected an iron weapon of the Bronze Period if there had 

 been any to protect; or you may find, as I am happy often to have 

 seen, the bones in a capital state of preservation, and contrasting to 

 great advantage with the corroded and ' perished ' bones of Saxons 

 wliose iron weapons were, nevertheless, ver^ present with them ; or the 

 grave itself may contain a considerable quantity of free carbonic 

 acid, as other sunk wells do, and yet may be so dry from conditions 

 of superjacent and subjacent rubble and soil as to have afforded no 

 means for the removal of any results of any slight erosion which its 

 contents might have suffered. The phenomena disclosed by the 

 spade must be compared with those disclosed by the test tube ; 

 there is here a makro- as well as a ??^^/^ro-chemistry. 



