286 REV. J. MAGENS MELLO, M.A., F.G.S., ETO. 
obtained their tin from such sources as these, rather than 
from the distant Hast? That in the course of time they did 
do so is pretty clear, but the invention of bronze,—indeed, of 
metallurgy in any form,—did not, as far as we can judge, 
originate in Europe; the first bronze, then, was not of 
European manufacture, but was a foreign importation, brought 
in by a foreign race, who, in the course of time, instructed 
the original inhabitants of this part of the world in the art of 
smelting the metallic ores, and thus led in due course to the 
discovery of independent sources of the various metals which 
they used. All progress in civilisation in this part of the 
world appears to have travelled from Hast to West and not 
in the contrary direction. Thus it is hardly likely that the 
manufacture of bronze was invented by the Phoenicians simul- 
taneously with the discovery of tin in Spain, and that they 
should have made there so great a stride at a time when the 
highly-cultured Egyptians were ignorant of the bronze alloy. 
Another objection to this view, that bronze was invented in 
Spain, is the fact that the Murcian graves which have been 
described contained much more pure copper than bronze, the 
bronze appearing at first only in the form of ornaments of a 
far higher type than that of the accompanying copper imple- 
ments. The tin mines of Spain are all on the western side 
of that country, and all the evidence we have seems to show 
that it was not until a comparatively late date that the mines 
of Spain and the more distant ones of Cornwall were dis- 
covered and used. 
The conclusion we arrive at is, that the bronze metallurgy 
originated at a period long anterior to its introduction into 
Europe, probably in the central region of Asia, in the sup- 
posed cradle of the human race itself, and that thence it 
spread by slow degrees far and wide in every direction, as an 
accompaniment of advancing civilisation; and that whilst 
Kurope was still in the rudeness of the Stone age, metal- 
working people far advanced in culture were to be found in 
the central parts of the Asiatic Continent, who should push 
their way both East and West and gradually displace or blend 
with the older populations, bringing with them the arts and 
appliances of that higher culture which was the dawn of our 
present civilisation. 
We may note in passing that although copper and tin seem 
to have been the metals which first came into use in pre- 
historic times, it is probable that ata very early date gold 
and silver were also utilised in localities where they were - 
found in a native state. It has been commonly supposed that 
