The Bronze age marks a great step in man’s history. In many countries the use of copper, hardened by arsenic or oxide, was common for long before the alloy of copper and tin was used. In other countries, where the use of metals was imported, copper only appears as a native imitation of the imported bronze. Hence there is a true age of copper in lands where the use of metals has grown. It must by no means be supposed that copper excluded the use of flint; it was not until bronze became common that flint was disused. The existence of a Bronze age was first formulated, as distinct from a Stone age, about seventy years ago; and the existence of a Copper age has been much disputed in the last thirty years, but has only been proved clearly ten years ago, in Egypt. In the eighteenth century the bronze weapons found in England were attributed to the Romans by some writers, though others, with more reason, argued that they were British. In the first year of the century began the comparative study of such weapons with reference to modern savage products. The development of the metal forms from stone prototypes was pointed out in 1816; the tracing out of the succession of the forms and the modes of use appeared in 1847. Further study cleared up the details, and within the last twenty years the full knowledge of the Bronze age in other countries has left no question as to the general facts of the sequence of its history. In each type of tool and weapon there appears first a very simple form imitated from the stone implements which were earlier used. Gradually the facilities given by the casting and toughness of the metal were used, and the forms were modified; ornamentation was added, and thin work in embossed patterns gave the stiffness and strength which had been attained before by massive forms. The general types are the axe—first a plain slip of metal, later developed with a socket; then the chisel, gouge, sickle, knife, dagger, sword, spear, and shield; personal objects, as pins, necklets, bracelets, ear-rings, buttons, buckles, and domestic caldrons and cups. Most of these forms were found together, all worn out and broken, in the great bronze-founder’s hoard at Bologna. Lastly in the prehistory of Europe comes the Iron age, which so much belongs to the historical period that we can best consider it in noticing separate countries.