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subjection, Julius Caesar evidently informed himself with 
care not only of the general condition of the island, but of 
the productions of value which might be derived from it, and 
he tells us distinctly that, in the first place, the natives used 
square pieces of bronze or iron, of fixed weights, for money, 
from which we are to understand that they had then no 
coinage. He then proceeds to state that " tin is produced in 
the interior of the island, and iron in the maritime districts ; 
but the quantity of the latter is small ; their bronze (ces) is 
imported." I can imagine no reason why we at the present 
time, on nothing better than assumptions of our own, should 
reject the deliberate statement of a man in the position of Caesar, 
who obtained his information personally, who was interested 
in obtaining information that was correct, and who possessed 
an intelligence too high to be easily deceived. Caesar does 
not tell us that the Britons were ignorant of bronze when he 
visited them rather unceremoniously, but he assures us that 
iron was the metal of the two with which they were best 
acquainted, and that bronze was a metal which they obtained 
from abroad, no doubt from Gaul. Why then should we 
think that they made their weapons and working tools of the 
newly introduced metal bronze, when they may have had the 
previous knowledge of the better metal, iron, which was pro- 
duced in their own country ? All probability, indeed, is in 
favour of Caesar's statement, for why should we suppose that 
a people living in the midst of iron, should find and adopt 
a mixed metal like bronze, when they had a simple and 
much more useful metal before their eyes ? 
Before leaving the testimony of Julius Caesar, I will 
venture another remark, which goes to corroborate the 
accuracy of his statement. He knew only of two metals 
which so late as his time were obtained in the island, iron and 
tin — the first found in the " maritime districts," by which no 
doubt he meant the great weald of Sussex and Kent, which 
