Leaving the cause unsolved, we may be content to note that the practice dates from the first arrival of modern man in Europe, and may be much older. But shells and the vertebræ of fish are easily damaged, and store would have been set by perforated stones, which would have been much more durable. Pebbles of clear quartz, with natural perforations, were worn sometimes by our Saxon forefathers,[87] but such stones are scarce and would have been prized accordingly. I picture to myself the first discoverer of gold as a young man wishing to obtain the favour of a maid, or perhaps to purchase her from her father. I imagine such a youth going in search of some object, rare and durable and capable of being strung on a necklace. Walking down to a clear stream, perhaps to wash, though more probably to drink or to fish, he noticed in its bed a brilliant yellow stone of quite exceptional beauty. Picking it up and examining it he found he could bend it where it was thin, so that with the aid of a stone he was able to fashion it into the much sought-for bead. Here he had something which was perforated, strong, rare and also beautiful. We can imagine that his success would have been assured. Then would have followed the first gold rush. Now copper, too, is found in a native state, and is also malleable and easily modelled with a stone hammer; it, too, is capable of exhibiting a bright metallic lustre when clean. Though it could not compare with gold for beauty, or in the permanence of its natural lustre, it could well take second place, and being less rare it soon came to be used freely for decorative purposes. At first it was obtained only in a native state, and was hammered, not melted, as was the case until recent times around Lake Superior.[88] Later some copper ornaments probably fell into the fire, and it was thus discovered that it could be melted. Later still experiments were made with other metallic-looking ores, such as chalcopyrite, and the metal age had come. Where these discoveries were made is still a matter of uncertainty. Copper objects have been found not uncommonly in tombs of the second predynastic period in Egypt, and sometimes in those of the first.[89] So rare, however, are they in the latter, that, since the two cultures must to some extent have overlapped, it seems possible that the knowledge of this metal was introduced into Egypt by the second pre-dynastic people. It has been suggested recently that these people, with a copper culture, bringing the knowledge of wheat and the cult of Osiris, came from North Syria, from somewhere between Damascus and Beyrut,[90] and if Breasted’s views upon the Egyptian calender are sound, we may expect that they entered the Delta 4241 /B.C./ or thereabouts.[91]