at least, as stream tin, in the Spanish gold washings. Lastly,
when we place in connection with these considerations the fact that in
the earliest times of which we have certain knowledge, the tin trade
of Spain and England was monopolized by the Phoenicians, there seems
to be a strong probability that the extension of the trade of this
nation to the western Mediterranean really inaugurated the bronze
period. The only valid argument against this is the fact that moulds
and other indications of native bronze casting have been found in
Switzerland, Denmark, and elsewhere; but these show nothing more than
that the natives could recast bronze articles, just as the American
Indians can forge fish-hooks and knives out of nails and iron hoops.
Other considerations might be adduced in proof of this view, but our
limits will not permit us to refer to them. The important questions
still remain: When was this trade commenced, and how rapidly did it
extend itself from the sea-coast across Europe? The British tin trade
must have been in existence in the time of Herodotus, though his
notion of the locality was not more definite than that it was in the
extremity of the earth. The Phoenician settlements in the western
Mediterranean must have existed as early as the time of Solomon, when
"ships of Tarshish" was the general designation of seagoing ships for
long voyages. How long previously these colonies existed we do not
know; but considering the great scarcity and value of tin in those
very ancient times, we may infer that perhaps only the Spanish, and
not the British deposits were known thus early; or that the
Phoenicians had only indirect access to the latter. Perhaps we may fix
the time when these traders were able to supply the nations of Europe
with abundance of bronze in exchange for their products, at, say 1000
to 1200 B.C., as the earliest probable period; and possibly from one
to two centuries would be a sufficient allowance for the complete
penetration of the trade throughout Europe. But of course wars or
migrations might retard or accelerate the process; and there may have
been isolated spots in which a partial stone period extended up to
those comparatively recent times in which first the Greek trade, and
afterward the entire overthrow of the Carthaginian power by the
Romans, terminated forever the age of bronze and substituted the age
of iron. This would leave, according to our ordinary chronologies, at
least ten or fifte