Copper was very useful for ornaments, especially rings, armlets, and bracelets; for pointed objects like needles, pins, awls, and even daggers; to a certain extent for knives and razors. Copper axes were modelled at first after old stone patterns. This metal had one fatal defect, however; it would not hold an edge. Copper utensils were beautiful, but generally less useful than similar ones made of stone. They were largely for display and luxury, though this may hardly be true of its use in Egypt and the Orient. In Europe it could not shake the hold of the old, established flint. When the copper ore contained impurities of antimony or zinc, the alloy was harder. Then we find a very small percentage of tin, which slowly increases. There must have been long searching and experimenting before the classical recipe for bronze, ninety per cent copper and ten per cent tin, was established. We cannot well speak of a new copper culture or period. This began with the introduction of the harder and more beautiful, but always rare and expensive bronze. Still the great characteristic of the Bronze Age lay not so much in the introduction of a new metal as in the wider relations, communications, exchange of goods, and knowledge, and freer movements of individuals and peoples, which had brought it about. The discovery of metals, of salt, of minerals, and other materials useful for ornament and of the Baltic amber, was gradually furnishing considerable material which could be readily exchanged for the products of other sometimes distant and more advanced provinces and lands. The centres of distribution were often at some or considerable distance from the sources of the raw material, so especially in the case of flint implements. The location of the seat of manufacture and distribution depends largely on freedom and ease of communication. This leads us to glance at trade and trade-routes during this period.