mplements, and personal ornaments, but the varieties of
each sort are comparatively numerous. Swords and shields, which would be
well-nigh impossible accoutrements during the Stone period, now come
into use; so do moulds for casting, as well as bracelets and necklaces.
In short, the signs of a higher civilization and fresh means for the
conquest of either Man or Nature appear.

The evidence that the Bronze period succeeded the Stone, is on the whole
satisfactory; indeed its _a priori_ likelihood is so great, as to make a
little go a long way. At the same time, it must not be supposed that in
each individual case the newest monuments wherein we find bone and stone
are older than the oldest wherein we find bronze. No line of demarcation
thus trenchant can be drawn; and no proofs of absolute succession thus
conclusive can be discovered. Upon the whole, however, there was a time
when the early Britons were in the position of the South Sea Islanders
when first discovered, _i.e._, ignorant of the use of metals. As long as
the arts of metallurgy are unknown, the notice of the physical
conditions of the country is confined to its Flora, its Fauna, and its
stone quarries. What was there to cultivate? What was there to hunt or
to domesticate? What was there to build with? Now, however, the
questions change. What were the mineral resources of the soil? It is not
necessary to enlarge on these. The use of coal as a fuel is wholly
recent. On the other hand, certain varieties of it were used as
ornaments--the cannel coal, and the bituminous shale of Dorsetshire
(Kimmeridge clay). So was jet.

The metal first worked was _gold_; and its use dates as far back as the
Stone period; indeed it may belong to the very earliest age of our
island; since the localities where it has been found in Great Britain
are by no means few; and in early times each was richer than at present.
In England, from Alston Moor; in Scotland, from the head-waters of the
Clyde; and in Ireland, from the Avonmore, gold for the adornment of even
the hunters of the bone spear-head, and the woodsmen of the
stone-hatchet might have been procured; and the simple art of working
it, although it may possibly have been Gallic in origin, may quite as
easily have been native. The chief gold ornaments, torcs, armillae, and
fibulae have been found in association with bronze articles, but not
exclusively.

With those archaeologists and ethnologists who believe that the
introducti