Professor Petrie, the famous Egyptologist, when speaking on his wonderful researches some little time ago, said mankind had had a long past. That past leads to the present, and without a knowledge of the present and to some extent of the intermediate ages we cannot fully understand the past. It is the curios of antiquity which help us, and lead up by slow degrees to the present; this is understood by the curio-hunter, and realized more and more as he goes further into the past of nations. The curios of the Bronze Age are not limited in locality. They are found in continents far removed from Western civilization, for in the remains of ancient Peruvians there are tools of bronze belonging to their far-off past. The Incas were not only adepts at working the precious metals with tools of bronze, but they were clever workers of other raw materials. They possessed beautiful textiles of cotton and wool and were noted agriculturists, having implements of tillage made of bronze. The Forger at Work. A warning note is often sounded by those who have paid dearly for their experience. It is needed, for there are many pitfalls for the unwary, especially in his researches among the relics of the Bronze Age and periods which have been much copied by the makers of modern antiques. It is worthy of note that in the middle of the nineteenth century several Birmingham firms in making bronzed inkstands, bracket lights, candelabra, and figures supporting lamps, copied the antique very closely, one noted firm announcing on their trade circulars that their designs were "according to Greek, Roman, and Gothic ornaments." Examples of such comparatively modern work, when discovered tarnished and neglected, may sometimes have a close resemblance to real antiques, and even the curios of still greater antiquity--especially Egyptian curiosities--have been much forged. The forger--or, as he would prefer to be called, the maker of replicas--is still at work. IV GREEK AND ROMAN CURIOS CHAPTER IV GREEK AND ROMAN CURIOS Grecian bronzes--Relics of Roman occupation--Interesting toilet requisites--Artificial lighting--Statues and monuments--Romano-British art--A well staged exhibit. It is from the curios in metal and the antiquities in stone which have been discovered, chiefly in comparatively recent years, that we are able to read with understanding the allusions made by classic writers to domestic life as it was in ancient Greece and Rome. The records of the art of Greece become more real when we have gazed upon the beautiful and graceful statues and the furniture of the palace and domain for which the artists and metal-workers of those days were so justly celebrated. Even the public school boy takes a greater interest in his studies when he recognizes in the furnishings of his home antiquities from Greece or those lands in which that once powerful nation founded colonies. Grecian Bronzes.