They had no forks nor spoons; no pots nor pans; no buckets nor shovels; no needles nor pins. The People of the Stone Age had never seen or heard of such a thing as iron or steel or tin or brass or anything made of these metals. For thousands and thousands of years Primitive People got along without any of the things that are made of metal. Then one day a Stone Age Man found out something by accident; a “discovery” we call it. He was making a fire; and a fire, which is to us such a common, every-day thing, was still to him very wonderful. Round his fire he placed some rock to make a sort of camp-fire stove. Now, it happened that this particular rock was not ordinary rock but what we now call “ore,” for it had copper in it. The heat of the fire melted some of the copper out of the rock, and it ran out on the ground. What were those bright, shining drops? He examined them. How pretty they were! He heated some more of the same rock and got some more copper. [Illustration: A cave man discovering copper.] Thus was the first metal discovered. At first people used the copper for beads and ornaments, it was so bright and shiny. But they soon found out that copper could be pounded into sharp blades and points, which were much better than the stone knives and arrow-heads they had used before. But notice that it was not iron they discovered first, it was copper. We think people next discovered tin in somewhat the same way. Then, after that, they found out that tin when mixed with copper made a still harder and better metal than either alone. This metal, made of tin and copper together, we now call bronze; and for two or three thousand years people made their tools and weapons out of bronze. And so we call the time when men used bronze tools, and bronze weapons for hunting and fighting, the Bronze Age. At last some man discovered iron, and he soon saw that iron was better for most useful things than either copper or bronze. The Iron Age started with the discovery of iron, and we are still in the Iron Age. As people who lived in the Bronze and Iron Ages were able, after the discovery of metal, to do many things they could not possibly have done before with only stone, and as they lived much more as we do now, we call people of the Bronze and Iron Ages “civilized.” You may have heard in your mythology or fairy tales of a Golden Age also, but by this is meant something quite different. The Golden Age means a time when everything was beautiful and lovely and everybody wise and good. There have been times in the World’s History which have been called the Golden Age for this reason. But I am afraid there never has been really a golden age--only in fairy-tales. 4 From an Airplane People of the Bronze and Iron Ages thought the world was flat, and they knew only a little bit of the world, the small part where they lived; and they thought that if you went too far the world came to an end where you would TU M B L E