Manchester Memoirs, Vol. Ix. (191 5), No. 1. 21 



the Japanese examples." Such a comparison is not 

 without value, as, although it does not prove with certainty 

 that the process and furnace used by prehistoric men in 

 Europe was identical, yet it affords some evidence in 

 favour s of the view that they were not very widely different. 30 

 The lumps of copper of the period of the Bronze Age 

 have the columnar structure, caused by breaking the 

 metal when it is just on the point of solidification. Pro- 

 fessor Gowland says " This proves inconclusively that the 

 mode in which the copper had been removed from the 

 furnace is identical with that practised in Korea, as 

 already described." The cakes found are fragments of 

 rough plano-convex disc-shaped masses, of diameter 

 8-12 ins. and greatest thickness \\ ins. "This would 

 indicate that the smelting furnace in which copper was 

 then extracted from its ores was a shallow conical or 

 hemispherical hole . . . resembling the primitive furnaces 

 of Japan." 31 



Professor Gowland says that " the mines of Salzburg 

 were undoubtedly worked in the time of the lake-dwel- 

 lings of the neighbouring Mond See and Atter See. The 

 furnace which Dr. Much found there is, according to Pro- 

 fessor Gowland, "exactly similar to the Japanese smelting 

 furnace, excepting that it was built above the ground 

 level ; and was worked in the same way, that is, the blast 

 was led into it over its upper edge, and its contents, both 

 of slag and copper, were removed from its open mouth, 

 as in the Japanese practice." 32 



The crucibles were everywhere made of the same 

 substance in the earliest times. Moreover, the sides are 

 so thick and the clay so fusible that it is impossible to 

 melt copper or bronze in them, by the application of 



80 Ibid. 283. 



81 Ibid. 285. 



3 ■ Ibid, z^etseq. 



