77 
ments were in use. In all the ancient mines, worked by the 
Romans, so far as I know, iron toolSi have alone been met 
with. Nor am I aware of any mines, of post-Roman date 
in Europe, which have been carried on with tools com- 
posed of any other material. It would, therefore, seem 
probable that they are of pre-Roman age, and that they are 
of the class termed pre-historic by the archseologists. 
'What Ores were sought in the Surface Worldngs. 
Nor is it absolutely certain what metal was sought in 
these surface workings, because ores of copper, cobalt, lead, 
iron, and manganese are associated together in that spot. 
If they were in search of copper, the ore must either then 
have been richer than that which they left behind, or they 
must have been acquainted with some mode of reducing the 
small per centage of copper (which averages considerably 
less than 5 per cent) from the matrix, of which we are 
ignorant. This is at present effected by a bath of hydro- 
chloric acid. Possibly, like some of the joint-stock com- 
panies of the present day, they may have been seeking for 
copper without success ; but in that case the large number 
of stone hammers is not explained. Had tools such as these 
been used for the extraction either of lead or of iron they 
would most probably have been discovered in the workings 
which have been carried on throughout Great Britain, 
certainly since the Roman occupation to the present day. 
And it is hard to believe that the miners of Alderley worked 
these metals in a ruder fashion than any others in this 
country, so far as the present evidence stands. Nor is it at 
all likely that the insignificant and obscure ores of lead and 
iron at Alderley would attract the notice of miners in 
ancient times, when both were obvious, and very rich in the 
adjacent districts of Lancashire amd Derbyshire. 
The only conclusion which I wiU venture to draw, is that 
these implements imply a ruder phase of the art of raining 
