no remote approximation to 'ferrum.' Nor with the older metals is it greatly different, as bronze, Gael, 'umha' or '_prais_'; Welsh, 'pres,' whence our English 'brass,' a name bearing no very indistinct resemblance to the Roman 'æs.' Lead in like manner has its peculiar Gaelic name 'luaidha,' like the Saxon 'læd' (lead), while the Welsh 'plwm' closely approximates to the Latin 'plumbum.' It may undoubtedly be argued that the Latin is the root instead of the offshoot of these Celtic names, but the entire archæological proofs are opposed to this idea," p. 350. Sir J. Lubbock, "Pre-historic Times" (p. 372) says, "The tools of the Tahitians when first discovered were made of stone, bone, shell, or wood. Of metal they had no idea. When they first obtained nails they mistook them for the young shoots of some very hard wood, and hoping that life might not be quite extinct, planted a number of them carefully in their gardens." Captain Wallis, however, speaking of the islands within the Polynesian group, remarks "as an extraordinary circumstance that although no sort of metal was seen on any of the lately discovered islands, yet the nations were no sooner possessed of a piece of _iron_, than they began to _sharpen it_, but did not treat copper or brass in the same manner."--"Voyages of English Navigators round the World," iii. 108. Would not these different appreciations of iron and brass be accounted for if we suppose iron to be the _last_ metal they had been traditionally acquainted with? iron being the more common and inexpensive metal. Now, secondly, as it happens that bronze is only a combination of copper and tin in certain proportions, and as neither existed on the spot (in the Mesopotamian valley), it is a curious question how they could have hit upon the discovery through actual experiment. Tin, for instance, is only found in Cornwall, Banca (between Sumatra and Borneo), Spain, Saxony, and Siberia. Now, how did it enter the heads of even these wise Chaldæans to go to these distant countries in search of this metal unless they knew beforehand through tradition, that if procured along with copper it would produce the useful amalgam they sought? True, it might have been brought to them through commerce, but in that case there must have been some other race more advanced in civilisation than themselves. If the Phoenicians, much the same argument will recur. If some race in the countries where tin was procured, where is it now? If it exists it must be represented by some race at present or historically known to have been in a state of barbarism. This, however, at this stage of the argument, would be too precipitate an admission of degeneracy!