probably, a concomitant of the tin trade.

Undoubted specimens of weaving and undoubted specimens of pottery, occur during the Bronze period. Lead, too, is found in some of the bronze alloys; the word itself being, apparently, of Keltic origin. Whether the same could not be referred to the Stone period is uncertain. It is probable, however, that whilst the implements were of stone and bone, the dress was of skin.

Nothing has yet been said about the dwellings of the early islanders. This is because it is difficult to assign a date to their remains. They may belong to the Bronze—they may belong to the Stone period. They may be more recent than either. At any rate, however, relics of ancient domestic architecture exist. A foundation sunk in the earth, with stone walls of loose masonry, and covered, most probably, with reeds and branches, suggests the idea of a subterranean granary, for which the old houses of the earliest Britons have been mistaken; but, nevertheless, it belonged to a house. On the floor of this we find charred bones, and enormous heaps of oyster and mussel shells. Stone handmills, too, denote the use of corn; though from the character of the ancient[36] Flora, vegetable forms of food must have been rarer than animal.

Iron was known in Cæsar's time. How much earlier is doubtful. So was silver. Both were of later date than gold and bronze; and more than this it is not safe to say. Of the great monolithic buildings, it is reasonable to suppose that they are later than the Stone, and earlier than the Historical, period. Druidism, however, in its germs may be of any antiquity; not, however, if we suppose that the first introduction of bronze coincided with the first introduction of the Kelts.

An Iron period succeeds the Bronze; but it will not be the subject of our immediate consideration, inasmuch as it coincides pretty closely with the historic epoch. The sequence, however, requires further notice. That there should be a period in the history of mankind when the use of metals, and the arts of metallurgy were wholly unknown, and that during such a period, imperfect implements of bone and stone should minister to the wants of an underfed and defenceless generation, is not so much a particular fact in British ethnology as a general doctrine founded upon our a priori views, and applicable to the history of man at large. For if each of the useful arts have its own proper origin, referrible to some particular place, time, and community, there must have been an era when it was wanting to mankind. Hence,[37] an ante-metallic age is as much the conception of the speculator, as the discovery of the investigator.

The order in which the metals are discovered, the leading problem in what may be called the natural history of metallurgy, is far more dependant upon induction. Induction, however, has given the priority to copper, just as is expected from the comparative reducibility of its ores—lead and gold being put out of the question. So that it is not so much the general fact of the order of succession in respect to the Stone, Copper, and Iron periods that the laudable investigations of British archæologists have established as the nature of the concomitant details, the modifications of the periods themselves, and the exact character of their sequence. Under each of these heads there is much worth notice. The difference between the shape and size of the skulls of the Stone and Bronze periods has been broadly asserted—perhaps it has been exaggerated, at any rate it has formed the basis of an hypothesis. The substitution of a Bronze for a Copper period in Britain is an important modification, mainly attributable to the existence of tin. The comparative completeness of the sequence is interesting. It by no means follows that it should be regular. In Norway there is no Bronze period at all; but Bone and Stone in the first instance, and Iron immediately afterwards.