300 REV. J. MAGENS MELLO, M.A., F.G.S., ETC. 
nationalities, more closely resembles some Cornish mining village, as 
Redruth or Camborne, than an ordinary Greek country hamlet. I 
think it is a wonderful thing how custom lasts, that at this time 
they should take the trouble to send the ore to the Spanish coast to 
be brought into use. 
Mr. Davip Howarp, F.C.S.—There is one point that I think it will 
be well to consider in treating this very important question, and that 
is the very high pitch of civilisation which the use of metal means. 
It is to us so natural that we do not very often consider the 
intelligence that must be required to introduce metal at all. 
No doubt the origin of the discovery of metal was by some 
chance ; but given that chance discovery of metal, perhaps on 
the fire-hearth, the intelligent observation, skill, and thought 
required to work and combine these metals is something wonderful. 
It is not one of those industries which grew naturally, and it 
is not surprising that the ancients thought it required some 
Hepheestos to teach the working of metals. The precise reason why 
bronze differs so from copper and tin is, I believe, at present a 
mystery : we do not know exactly why bronze is so much harder 
than the two metals singly, or why the admixture of lead or tin 
with gold renders gold so brittle that you can powder it; but the 
fact remains so, and countless ages ago they had found it out, and 
executed work which seems hardly possible to us now ; in fact, we 
do not know how bronze was brought to the perfection of hardness 
of those days ;* and when we consider the difficulties of working 
steel and iron without blasting furnaces in those days, it is evident 
that an amount of skill and thought which it is very difficult to 
estimate was shown by those men,—those unknown forefathers of 
metal work who first thought of it and worked with such per-— 
fection. 
Mr, EH, Cuarteswortn, F.G.S.—In looking over the paper, there 
is only one thing on which I would venture to make a suggestion. 
Mr. Mello says :—‘ The discovery and use of tin in the manufacture 
of bronze mark, it is well said, a great epoch in the history of 
human culture, for this metal is never found in a native condition. 
Its ore is dull and non-metallic in appearance, having nothing 
about it to attract attention, whilst it is by no means widely 
distributed.” Now it is perfectly true that mineralogists, and 
* It has been considered that meteoric iron must have been the first 
man began to use, 
