474 
a practice of placing flint implements with flint implements, 
bronze with bronze, and iron with iron, until, forgetting 
entirely the real elements which give them an individual 
meaning, they begin to look at them just as if they were 
so many fossils belonging to such and such geological strata, 
and thus form systems which are pretty and attractive to 
look at, but which, in truth, belong only to the imagination. 
It will, perhaps, not be occupying the time of the Society 
quite fruitlessly, if we enter a little more in detail into this now 
rather celebrated system of periods. And first, with regard 
to the stone-period, — I do not mean at all to deny that the 
prevalence of implements, like those I have been describing, 
made of stone, must be considered as characteristic of a low 
degree of social development ; and, in fact, it seems to 
imply the ignorance of metals, or the incapacity to work 
them. This, however, is by no means a necessary conse- 
quence. When communication between one place and 
another, even at short distances, was slow and difficult, — 
which was the case not only among the ancient inhabitants 
of this island, but comparatively even down to very recent 
times — people were commonly obliged to use the materials 
they had ready at hand, from the impossibility of obtaining 
a regular supply of material of a more appropriate character. 
It is probable that if one of the tribe of the Parisi, or several 
together, set off to a place no farther off than York to seek a 
supply of materials, he or they ran the imminent risk of 
never returning. Metal of any kind, therefore, might be 
an article of which they depended for a small and precarious 
supply on some itinerant dealer, who, of course, could not 
be expected to carry with him any large quantity. It is, 
therefore, quite possible that the use of metal and the use 
of stone for such implements may have existed co-tem- 
poraneously. We have, indeed, sufficient evidence that 
they did so exist. We find stone implements along with 
