obably refer to the circumstance
that marine fishing and the collection of the eggs of sea-birds
were prosecuted there on an extensive scale. When we put together
and endeavour to fill up the isolated and scanty statements which have
reached us regarding the Celtic commerce and intercourse, we come
to see why the tolls of the river and maritime ports play a great
part in the budgets of certain cantons, such as those of the Haedui
and the Veneti, and why the chief god of the nation was regarded
by them as the protector of the roads and of commerce, and at
the same time as the inventor of manufactures. Accordingly the Celtic
industry cannot have been wholly undeveloped; indeed the singular
dexterity of the Celts, and their peculiar skill in imitating
any model and executing any instructions, are noticed by Caesar.
In most branches, however, their handicraft does not appear
to have risen above the ordinary level; the manufacture of linen
and woollen stuffs, that subsequently flourished in central
and northern Gaul, was demonstrably called into existence only
by the Romans. The elaboration of metals forms an exception,
and so far as we know the only one. The copper implements
not unfrequently of excellent workmanship and even now malleable,
which are brought to light in the tombs of Gaul, and the carefully
adjusted Arvernian gold coins, are still at the present day
striking witnesses of the skill of the Celtic workers in copper
and gold; and with this the reports of the ancients well accord,
that the Romans learned the art of tinning from the Bituriges
and that of silvering from the Alesini--inventions, the first of which
was naturally suggested by the traffic' in tin, and both of which
were probably made in the period of Celtic freedom.

Mining

Hand in hand with dexterity in the elaboration of the metals went
the art of procuring them, which had attained, more especially in
the iron mines on the Loire, such a degree of professional skill
that the miners played an important part in the sieges. The opinion
prevalent among the Romans of this period, that Gaul was one
of the richest gold countries in the world, is no doubt refuted
by the well-known nature of the soil and by the character
of the articles found in the Celtic tombs, in which gold appears
but sparingly and with far less frequency than in the similar
repositories of the true native regions of gold; this conception
no doubt had its origin merely from the d