The Scottish Naturalist. 



7 



the separation or dispersion of the Aryan nations, because its 

 names vary in the languages that superseded the general use of 

 the Aryan tongue. 



I shall not attempt to decide a question attended by so much 

 difficulty • but, as it bears, in a degree, on the subject of the early 

 use of implements by our race, I wish to bring before you some 

 historical facts, which appear to me of sufficient weight to make 

 us hesitate before making or accepting dogmatic statements as to 

 the different periods in which the metals have been employed as 

 implements. 



For example, implements have been formulated as belonging 

 to three successive periods : — 



I. — The Stone Age ; denoting the employment of stone imple- 

 ments, in a rude and very remote period. 

 IT. — The Bronze Age ; marking an epoch in the history of man, 

 distinguished by a development of greater resources, in 

 which the use of Stone gave place to that of Bronze. 

 III. — The Age of Iron ; an era in which this most useful of the 

 metals is employed in the manufacture of the common 

 implements of husbandry and war, in the tools of the 

 workers of stone, wood, and iron itself, in the construction, 

 in whole, or in part, of houses, conveyances, ships, &c, 

 indeed, occupying the foremost place of all the metals in 

 their uses to man. 

 Modern researches have done a great deal to rob this classification 

 of Archaeologists of much of its claims to scientific or historical 

 acceptance, by proving that the use of Stone, Bronze, and Iron 

 has sometimes been contemporaneous. Weapons of each kind 

 have been found in the same ancient graves and dwellings. And 

 in confirmation of this, it is pointed out that the Huns fought with 

 iron swords, while their arrows had points of bone. It is remarked 

 that, while the implements found in Herculaneum and Pompeii 

 have been almost invariably of bronze, Pliny gives a long descrip- 

 tion, in his Natural History, of the manufacture of iron, its general 

 abundance in every country and its application to the general uses 

 obtaining in the present day. 



In the Norman Conquest, 1066 a.d., the Anglo-Saxons fought 

 with stone mauls, at the battle of Sinlac or Hastings. And so late 

 as the Thirty Years' War, in the 17th century, the Germans em- 

 ployed stone hammers as instruments of war. 



