420 Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy. 
fest—so in human civilization. In the earlier times few varieties of 
stone implements were found. The celt might vary in size within wide 
limits, but always follows a typical pattern ; it is the sole universally 
diffused form of stone implement we have. Arrow-heads of flint are 
altogether restricted to the special districts where flints abound, or 
to contiguous districts: so are the rude scrapers and flint flakes, and 
we cannot correlate them with any special epoch: they appear to have 
been used in the earliest times, and certaily continue to be manu- 
factured to the present day after the same rude process employed 
originally. Of course they are no longer used for the chase or battle, 
but supply a considerable demand on the part of tourists to the Giant’s 
Causeway, and coast of Antrim, who wish to carry with them, parti- 
cularly to America, undoubted specimens of our ‘‘ flint antiquities.” 
For this purpose they are made in hundreds. No sooner does bronze 
take the place of stone than we notice a wide difference: the celt, 
the palstave and its many varieties; the dagger, sword, spear, &c., 
all point to special ends for which they are designed. It is a fair 
subject for conjecture that our stone-using race, like the present 
Australians, may have employed various skilful adaptations of wood, 
&e., which have perished, and when examining recently the ethnolo- 
gical collection brought back by Mr. Hardman from a geological 
excursion to Kimberley, N. West Australia, this appeared to me to 
be quite within reasonable conjecture. The aborigines, he informs me, 
will cut down trees nine inches in diameter with their stone imple- 
ments, and also apply them with much skill to form notches in the 
bark of trees for the purpose of climbing the stem, placing their great 
toes in the notches of the rude ladder thus formed. 
A similarity of composition, within certain limits, distinguishes 
all our ancient bronzes. This alone would poimt to some primitive 
common origin, and the essential components being limited in the 
earlier ages to copper alloyed with a considerable proportion of tin, 
the latter constituent of necessity limit that origin to the few districts 
where sufficient tin abounds: with us it points beyond doubt to a 
foreign and extraneous source, for the amount of tin obtainable in Ire- 
land is insignificant. Again, weapons of bronze similar in their compo- 
sition and general design are found scattered over wide districts in 
Europe: these could not for a moment be supposed to have originated 
here, whilst it is quite reasonable to ascribe our supplies to an over- 
flow from the Continent. Unlike stone weapons, which each tribe or 
individual could fabricate for themselves; bronze implements are the 
obvious result of some organized manufacturing process. Many con- 
current reasons render the conjecture more than probable that they 
reached our shores, through indirect channels, from the Mediterranean, 
possibly through Pheenician or Cyprian colonies in Spain or southern 
France, as Marseilles, &c., which were recognised trade centres from a 
very early age. Whenever weapons fabricated from bronze had 
arrived in sufficient quantity, they could, if broken or damaged, be 
remelted and recast without difficulty, and that this was done at least 
