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and all kinds of sites which have been excavated, showing works of 

 art, implements, and the mode of living of ancient man before the 

 time of writing. It is somewhat difficult to draw an absolute line 

 between the latest of those men and the men who learnt to write 

 records. But we very soon get back to a period when in this 

 part of the world — Europe — men had not the use of iron. We pass 

 out of the iron age. Even at the time that the Romans had the 

 use of iron the people of France and England did not use it, but 

 used bronze. This bronze age extends to a somewhat earlierperiod. 

 The predecessors of the Romans in Italy had only bronze and 

 no iron, and so it was also in Greece, when a fairly high civilization 

 obtained. Thus the iron age was comparatively a late one and 

 is that in which we are still living. Behind the iron age we come 

 to the bronze age, and this age succeeded the stone age in Western 

 Europe about 2,000 or 3,000 years ago. The great stones of 

 Stonehenge apparently belong to a period when bronze was just 

 coming in and stone going out. Before bronze, man had nothing 

 but stone with which to make cutting implements. Further east, 

 the metal period extended a little farther back ; but at about 5,000 

 years B.C. all the world they knew of in the eastern parts of 

 Europe as well as the western was simply dependent upon stone of 

 one kind or another. In that stone period great advantage was 

 apparently enjoyed in Western Europe on account of the existence 

 there of great stores of magnificent flint. Probably in those times 

 great flints were of more value than coal mines are in the present 

 day. These people used flints by preference for making all kinds of 

 knives, hatchets, hammers, and other weapons or imple- 

 ments. In some parts of Europe where flint was not 

 accessible other very hard stone (such as quartzite) was 

 used. But flint was the best of all materials and — as 

 was seen in the latter part of the stone period, just before the 

 use of metals was discovered — enormous facility was gained in the 

 manipulating, chipping, and sculpturing of flint. This facility 

 to a certain extent remains to the present day. In a few localities 

 flint is still worked for the purpose of making gun flints, and 

 it is an interesting fact that people so working at Brandon, in 

 Suffolk are the direct successors of prehistoric man, for there have 

 always been flint works at Brandon. In the later stone age, and 

 even in the earlier stone age, there was digging in the chalk for 

 flint, and the production of beautifully sculptured flint. There was 

 probably considerable trade in manufactured flint by means of ex- 

 change between countries which had a good supply of flint. In 

 Egypt, and even in India, we find stone implements made of other 

 material— chert, quartzite, or other substances. The stone period 

 can be traced back 4,000 years, and is divided into two groups of 

 successive periods, in the later one of which flint was chipped and 

 then polished. We have found the stones upon which the flint was 

 polished, these being coarse sandstone, such as the sarsen-stone 

 in this part of the world, a very hard, gritty siliceous stone. 



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