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other articles, among which were four brass coins of 
Caracalla ; and another was found in another locality, 
along with skeletons and coins, some of which were of 
the Emperor Maxentius, so that they could not have been 
deposited in the place where they were met with before the 
fourth century of the Christian era. 
With regard to the iron-period it is not necessary to say 
much. We all know that from the first period at which we 
trace the knowledge of iron, the use of it has continued without 
interruption. But we know also, that iron is the most 
perishable of all the metals. We have only to wet the 
blade of a knife, and in that state expose it to the air, 
and decomposition begins immediately. Beyond a certain 
date, no article in iron is preserved, except under very 
favourable circumstances. Every one who has been present 
at the opening of Anglo-Saxon graves, the average date of 
which may be considered as the sixth century, and in which 
abundance of iron implements, and especially weapons, such 
as swords and spears, were buried, knows how often the 
former existence of such articles is only traced by a darker 
tinge in the earth. It is, therefore, no proof that, at a 
period before the Roman age, (when we know that metal 
was used,) iron was not in use, that we find no remains of it. 
These various considerations lead me to the conclusion, 
that the system of periods adopted by the northern archae- 
ologists must be rejected as having no foundation in facts. 
The use of stone, no doubt, marked a low state of civiliza- 
tion, but it depended partly on localities and their peculiar 
conditions, and did not belong to any particular period, or to 
any particular people ; nor was it incompatible with the use of 
the metals at the same time. The same considerations seem 
to show that there was no bronze-period in the sense those 
archaeologists give to the term ; but that the articles in bronze 
on which they build their theory, were really of Roman 
