305 



" Sir W. R. Wilde himself admits it to be remarkable, that so few 

 antique copper implements have been found, although a knowledge of that 

 metal must have been the preliminary stage in the manufacture of bronze." 

 He thinks, however, that "the circumstance may be accounted for either 

 by supposing that but a short time elapsed between the knowledge of 

 smelting and casting copper ore, and the introduction of tin and subsequent 

 manufacture and use of bi-onze ; or from the probability of nearly all such 

 articles having been recast and converted into bronze subsequent to the 

 introduction of tin, which renders them harder, sharper, and more valuable. 



"There is, however, another circumstance which strongly militates 

 against this theory of a gradual and independent development of metallurgical 

 knowledge in different countries, and that is the fact which has been broadly 

 stated by Mr. Wright, and which I may, perhaps, repeat here, that whenever 

 we find the bronze swords or celts, whether in Ireland in the far west, in 

 Scotland, in distant Scandinavia, in Germany, or, still further east, in the 

 Sclavonic countries, they are the same — -not similar in character, but identical. 

 The great resemblance of stone implements found in different parts of the 

 world may be satisfactorily accounted for by the similarity of the material, and 

 the simplicity of the forms. But this argument cannot be applied to the 

 bronze arms and implements. Not only are several varieties of celts found 

 throughout Europe, but some of the swords, knives, daggers, etc., are so 

 similar, that they seem as if they must have been cast by the same maker. It 

 would have been easy to multiply examples of this similarity, and it is not 

 going too far to say that these resemblances cannot be the result of accident. 

 On the other hand, it must be admitted that each country has certain minor 

 peculiarities. Neither the forms nor the ornaments are exactly similar. In 

 Denmark and Mecklenburg, spiral ornaments are most common ; farther 

 south, these are replaced by ring ornaments and lines. The Danish swords 

 generally have solid, and richly decorated handles, while those found in Great 

 Britain terminate in a plate which was riveted to pieces of wood or bone. 

 Again, the British lance heads frequently have loops at the side of the shaft- 

 hole, which is never the case with Danish specimens. The discovery of 

 moulds in Ireland, Scotland, and England, Switzerland, Denmark, and else- 

 where, shows that the art of casting in bronze was known and practised in 

 many countries. Under these circumstances, it appears most probable that 

 the knowledge of metal is one of those great discoveries which Europe owes to 

 the East, and that the use of Copper was not introduced into our Continent, 

 until it had been observed, that by the addition of a small quantity of tin it 

 was rendered harder and more valuable." 



At whatever period the people of the "Western countries of Europe may 

 have acquired their first knowledge of bronze, it is clear that it must have 

 been long anterior to any of which we have historical knowledge, nor does it 

 much concern our enquiry except as regards the very great antiquity of the 

 march of civilization. In the opinion of Professor Wilson (as we are told 

 by Mr. Lubbock), " the ornamentation characteristic of the Bronze age, 

 is decidedly Semitic rather than Indo-European. He lays considerable 

 stress on two curious vase-carriages, one found in Sweden and the other in 

 Mecklenburg, which certainly appear to have been very like the ' vases ' made 

 for Solomon's temple, and described in the first Book of Kings. Finally he 

 believes that the use of war chariots, the practice of reaping close to the ear, 

 and a certain mode of fishing, are all evidences of Phoenician intercoiirse." 



We find, then, that the close of the Bronze age brings us to the clawn of 

 historic times, and we are able, by examination of a variety of remains, to trace 

 the progress of change in the physical character and organic life of the older 

 countries of Europe, a subject full of interest, and one which is found to march, 



