When we consider that copper is not only found in a state requiring little smelting to render it fit for manufacture, but that it is even discovered at times so pure that we may conceive of its occasional substitution for stone implements, before the art of smelting had become known, we can feel no hesitation in assuming, _a priori_, that it was the precursor of iron as a material for the construction of weapons and tools. Iron, on the contrary, bears, in its natural state, little resemblance to a metal, and is smelted by so difficult and tedious a process that, even after its superiority had become known, the older metal would probably be preferred by the natives of a thinly peopled country, where the benefits of mutual cooperation and the division of labour still remained among the unsolved problems of their political economy. The tools and weapons of the ancient Mexicans we know were of copper, and we are not without evidence that even the Egyptians were far advanced in their early developed civilisation before iron had superseded the older copper tools. The architectural monuments of Mexico and Yucatan show how much might be accomplished with such imperfect implements. Both in the magnificent work of the French savans, and in the more accurate delineations of M. Rosellini, various Egyptian paintings are shewn, in which the implements of the sculptors are evidently of bronze or copper, and workmen are seen cutting blocks of granite and hewing out colossal statues with yellow tools. Numerous bronze weapons, implements, and personal ornaments found in the catacombs, attest the use of this metal by the Egyptians at a comparatively late period. Implements of copper are also among the relics found in some of the ancient and long abandoned mines discovered in Asia. The celebrated tables in the copper mines of Wady Maghara, near Sinai, record the conquest of that part of Asia by Suphis, the builder of the great pyramid, and prove that these mines had been wrought prior to the early date of his reign. Dr. Layard also refers to copper mines still existing in the mountains within the confines of Assyria, worked at a very remote period, probably by the Assyrians, and used not only to supply the material for ornaments, but also for weapons and tools.[241] But there is not wanting abundant direct evidence to prove that Asia had her Bronze Period as well as Europe and Africa. Dr. Prichard remarks, "Silver and golden ornaments of rude workmanship, though in abundant quantity, are found in the Siberian tombs. The art of fabricating ornaments of the precious metals seems to have preceded by many ages the use of iron in the northern regions of Asia."[242] A very interesting account is given in the Archæologia of a tumulus opened in the neighbourhood of Asterabad, on the south-eastern shores of the Caspian Sea, in 1841. It contained several vessels and two small trumpets, all of pure gold; spears, pikes, forks, and other