The investigations of geologists in the early part of this century, culminating in the publication of Sir Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology," not only upset current theories regarding the past history of our globe, but also revolutionised the very formulæ on which these theories were founded. The influence of this drastic clearance of antiquated machinery in geology soon extended to the collateral sciences, and one of the first to benefit from the improved methods was archæology. The first great application of scientific methods to prehistoric researches was made in the north of Europe. The Scandinavian savants, in attempting to pry into the early history of their people, found so little reliable information in their sagas and other mythological fables, that they cast them altogether aside as useless or misleading. Struck with the elegance and beauty of the stone weapons and implements so profusely scattered over the land, they seized the idea, occasionally previously mooted by writers in other countries, but hitherto never seriously considered, that there was a time when people were entirely ignorant of the use of metals, and, in the prosecution of their social industries, had to depend exclusively on such tools as could be manufactured out of stone, horn, wood, etc. To this idea they soon afterwards linked another, which experience has also shown to be founded on accurate observation, viz. that their earliest metal objects were made from a nearly uniform compound of copper and tin, known as bronze. Iron, it was maintained, was not known in the country for several centuries afterwards; but, on the other hand, when it became known, it gradually superseded bronze in the manufacture of all cutting implements and weapons, on account of its superior qualities for such purposes.