dy good.' Probably the inhabitants of Herculaneum and Pompeii
had very little notion what valuable relics their bodies and houses
would prove in the end for curious posterity.

The converse evidence of a return trade in other goods is no less
striking. Not only are articles in amber found in Bronze Age tombs all
over Europe (though the gum itself belongs to the Baltic and the North
Sea alone), but also gold objects of southern workmanship occur in
British barrows; while sometimes even ivory from Africa is noticed in
the inlaid handles of some Welsh or Brigantian chieftain's sword. Glass
beads were likewise imported into Britain, as were also ornaments of
Egyptian porcelain. In fact, the Bronze Age clearly marks for us the
period when trade routes extended in every direction from the
Mediterranean, north and south, and when the world began to be
commercially solidified by a primitive theory of foreign exchange. It
is a little odd that the basis of all this traffic was tin, and that we
still use the name of that same metal as a brief equivalent for coin in
general: but persons of serious economical or philological intelligence
are particularly requested not to enter into grave correspondence with
the author of this paper on any possible levity which they may detect
lurking in this innocent remark.

Some small idea of the rapid advance in civilization which marked the
Bronze Age may perhaps be formed from a brief enumeration of the
principal classes of remains which have come down to us intact from
that first epoch of metal. Besides all the various celts, hatchets, and
adzes, whose name is legion, and whose patterns are manifold, many
other tools or implements occur abundantly in the barrows or _caches_.
Chisels, either plain, tanged, with lugs, or socketed; gouges, hammers,
anvils, and tongs; punches, awls, drills, and prickers; tweezers,
needles, fish-hooks, and weights; all these are found by dozens in
endless variety of design. Knives are common, and the vanity of Bronze
Age man made him even put up without a murmur with the pangs of shaving
with a bronze razor. Daggers and rapiers naturally abound, many of them
of rare and beautiful workmanship. Halberds turn up less frequently,
but swords are abundant, and are sometimes tastefully decorated with
gold or ivory. Even the scabbards sometimes survive, while the shields,
adorned with concentric rings or with knobs and bosses, would put to
shame the rank and file of cheap