How early this Spanish trade began we cannot yet say with certainty, beyond the fact that it must have been in existence for some time before the destruction of Hissarlik II. in 2225 /B.C./[106] How long it continued in the same hands is also uncertain. But, as I have shown elsewhere,[107] there is evidence that while it lasted, and certainly before 2000 /B.C./, the eastern traders not only passed through the Pillars of Hercules and discovered the tin fields in the north-west of the peninsula, but learned also that both tin and gold were to be found in the rivers of the south of Brittany. Before the close of the third millennium, probably several centuries before its close, this Levantine trade had reached the Morbihan, where stone axes have been found which repeat the shapes of copper axes from Cyprus.[108] Now, if we compare the copper and bronze axes found throughout the Mediterranean, from Cyprus to Spain, and those found along the west of Europe from Spain to Brittany, we find a gradual change in form from the triangular axes of Cyprus to the western type, with semi-circular butt and widely splayed edge. The earliest types are found only in the east, the more developed only in the west, for in the east they followed a different line of development. It is true, however, in a general way that the type develops as we pass westward and northward, two or more varieties overlapping at many points en route. This can better be understood by reference to the series of axes shown in Plate I., which could probably be made more perfect, were it possible to get drawings of all the specimens in local museums and private collections. If again we take the copper daggers, with broad butts and slightly ogival blades, several of which have been found in Crete, and compare them again with those found at Scurgola in South Italy and Monteracello in Sicily,[109] and with other types from Malta,[110] Spain, Brittany and the west, we shall find the type gradually narrowing at the butt and lengthening in the blade, till we come in later centuries to the type commonly known as the rapier, but which I think might more correctly be termed a dirk (see Plate II.). The gradual evolution of the axe and the dagger as they pass westwards and northwards seems to indicate a line of trade, spreading further and further to the north-west as the centuries pass. At present we must be content with an outline of the movement, but if illustrations of all the specimens found in these regions were available, I doubt not but that the evidence would be more convincing and the details and the dates more minute and exact.