THE DAWN OF METALLURGY. 287 
silver was unknown until the introduction of iron, but 
MM. Siret have found in some of the Murcian graves be- 
longing to what they call the third or Metal age, a con- 
siderable number of both gold and silver ornaments, as 
rings, beads, brooches, pendants, and diadems, made 
either of wire or of beaten plates of the precious metal ; 
and some of the bronze swords or daggers belonging 
to the same age were decorated with silver rivets. In 
their search for copper the early miners would come across 
the silver, which was till recently obtained in abundance at 
Herrerias de Cuevas, in the province where the discoveries 
alluded to were made, and it does certainly appear from these 
discoveries in Spain that wherever native silver was suffi- 
ciently plentiful to attract attention, as is the case in the 
district in question, then it would naturally have been made 
use of. The same thing may be said of the gold which was 
found in the same district. M. Recaredo de Garay also 
describes some discoveries of primitive workings for copper 
in the province of Huelva, and ascribes to the miners of 
this locality certain tombs which contained not only copper 
implements, but also ornaments of gold and silver of rude 
workmanship. Again, in Andalusia, in a cave containing 
many human skeletons, on the skull of one was found a gold 
diadem, whilst numerous stone implements as well as objects 
of bone and of other materials were discovered with them; 
it is, however, not easy to assign any definite age to these 
remains, which may belong to a comparatively late date. 
There are two other metals which came into use in early 
times, one of which, iron, soon became of such importance as 
to give its name to the age in which it replaced the bronze in 
common use. The other was lead. With regard to lead we 
have no certain indications as to when, or by whom, this 
metal was introduced; we may surmise that the first dis- 
covery was made accidentally through the reduction of its ore 
at some surface outcrop. The silver, which, as we have seen, 
was known at an early period in Spain, was not derived, as 
was that of a later date, from lead ores, but from veins of the 
native metal, otherwise we should have found lead simul- 
taneously used; but in the bronze of Spain, as in that of 
North-Western Europe, there is no admixture of lead unless 
it be accidental or infinitesimal in quantity. But we now 
come to aremarkable fact: both the ancient Egyptians, the 
Greeks, and the Etruscans of Italy used lead in making their 
bronze, as did also the Romans, but the Swiss bronze, in 
common with all the’ bronze of Northern Europe, has none, 
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