ySo 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



unburned bodies is determined by their relative positions in bar- 

 rows in which both occur. The burned bodies are always above 

 the unburned ones, showing later deposition. 



The large majority of the antiquities belonging to the Swedish 

 Bronze age were of native production. Nearly all the articles of 

 bronze are cast ; and traces of the use of the hammer do not ap- 

 pear till near the close of the period. Local styles are observable, 

 so that it is often possible to distinguish with considerable cer- 



Fig. 2.— Bronze Knife. 



tainty in what part of the North the article was made. Interest- 

 ing evidences of the home production of these things are often 

 found in the shape of the molds, of stone, in which they were cast, 

 that are occasionally found. A mold of this kind, for casting four 

 saws, is represented in Fig. 3. The presence of unfinished cast- 

 ings, defective specimens, and broken 

 molds, affords sure evidence that the 

 bronze-founding work was done in 

 the country. But "as there are no 

 tin mines in Scandinavia, and the 

 copper mines were probably not 

 worked till more than a thousand 

 years after the end of the Bronze 

 age, we must conclude that the 

 bronze used during this period was 

 imported from foreign countries. 

 Probably it was already mixed, either 

 in the form of works or in bars, be- 

 cause copper and tin in a pure state 

 very seldom occur in the North in 

 finds of this age." Instances of the 

 high perfection which the art of 

 bronze casting had reached are seen 

 pig. 3,-stone Mold for casting Pour in cer t a in large thin bronze vessels 



Bronze Saws. ° 



cast over a clay core, and a pair of 

 bronze axes with wide-spreading blades consisting of plates of 

 bronze hardly more than the third part of a line in thickness, with 

 the clay core over which they were cast still existing. These axes 



