the very oldest celts, are of red, almost unalloyed copper.” In addition to those there are also two battle-axes, a sword-blade, a trumpet, several fibulæ, and some rudely formed tools, all of copper; and now that attention has been directed to the subject, further examples of the same class will doubtless accumulate. A very important difference, however, distinguishes the mineral resources of the British and the North American copper regions. Copper, as we have seen, occurs in the trappean rocks of Keweenaw and Ontonagon, in masses of many tons weight; and detached blocks of various sizes lie scattered about in the superficial soil or exposed along the lake shore, ready for use without any preparatory skill, or the slightest knowledge of metallurgy. Nature in her own vast crucibles had carried the metal ores through all their preparatory stages, and left them there for man to shape into such forms as his convenience or simplest wants suggested. The native silver had undergone the like preparation, and is of frequent occurrence as a perfectly pure metal, being found, even when interspersed in the mass of copper, still in distinct crystals, entirely free from alloy with it. But neither tin nor zinc occurs throughout the whole northern region to suggest to the native metallurgist the production of that valuable alloy which is indissolubly associated with the civilisation of Europe’s Bronze age. In Britain it is altogether different. The tin and copper lie together, ready for alloy, but both occur in the state of impure ores, inviting and necessitating the development of metallurgy before they can be turned to economic uses. Tin is obtained in Cornwall almost entirely from its peroxide; and copper occurs there chiefly combined with sulphur and iron, forming the double sulphuret which is commonly called copper pyrites or yellow copper ore. The smelting process to which it has to be subjected is a laborious and complicated one; and if we are prepared to believe in the civilisation of Britain’s Bronze Period as a thing of native growth, the early discovery and use of alloys very slightly affects the question.