Copper, on the other hand, he believes to have been discovered in Egypt. The inhabitants of this country had, in neolithic days, been in the habit of mining malachite in the Sinaitic peninsula, and grinding this mineral on slate palates into a powder, which they applied to their eyes. Green powder thus applied is said to save the wearer from the ill-effects of glaring sunlight, and perhaps served also to keep away the flies, which are a constant source of ophthalmia. Professor Elliot Smith suggests that an Egyptian grinding his lump of malachite on his decorated slate palate, one day met with an unusually hard lump, which he could not grind satisfactorily. In a fit of temper he threw the offending morsel into the fire, doubtless with words of objurgation; later on in the ashes he found a small red bead of copper. A repetition of this action, no doubt with the same formula, produced an identical result, and so the discovery of the reduction of copper from its ore was made.[84] I must admit that at one time I doubted the possibility of this explanation, as I questioned whether the heat of a fire of dung, now and probably then also, the only available fuel, would be sufficient to reduce the ore. To satisfy me on this point, Mr. R. H. Rastall of Cambridge kindly made a laboratory experiment upon a piece of malachite, and as a result assured me that the heat of a dung fire would be ample for the purpose. While admitting that Professor Elliot Smith’s theories are both possible and suggestive, I feel inclined to offer another, albeit more prosaic solution to these problems. Primitive men, whether in prehistoric times or among backward peoples to-day, and, dare I say it, this is perhaps more true of primitive women, have a habit, not, I believe, quite extinct even in more advanced circles, of collecting small objects with natural perforations, or through which holes could readily be drilled, and stringing them upon a thread or wire to make necklaces or bracelets for the adornment of their persons. Such customs carry us back a long way. The old Grimaldi woman from the _Grotte des enfants_ wore two bracelets composed of perforated shells, while her son, if indeed he were her son, had worn on his head a chaplet of the same materials.[85] The Alpine inhabitants of the North Italian lake-dwellings used the vertebræ of pike for the same purpose.[86] Whether the use of strings of beads originated in some religious practice I know not, for it may be that such religious associations, though found to-day among Buddhists, Moslems and Christians, may be relatively modern. That in later days it proved a safe and convenient way of storing accumulated wealth seems more certain, and for this purpose the custom is still practised. Perhaps after all the Preacher was right and this, like everything else, was vanity.