ction
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, 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 archaeologists 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.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] _See_ Wilson's "Pre-historic Annals of Scotland."

[2] This is well worked out by Mr. Wilson, in his "Pre-historic Annals
of Scotland."--Pp. 238 &c.

CHAPTER