hic times. The people who had
triumphed over nature with their implements of stone were now put in
possession of weapons and implements of greatly increased efficiency.
The results could not fail to advance their culture. We would not expect
any great change in the houses. They would, however, be much better
built. The metallic tools were certainly a long ways ahead of the best
stone implements. With the aid of metallic axes, knives, saws, gouges,
and chisels, their cabins could be increased in size and appearance.
They still built settlements over the lakes, but the Bronze Age
settlements were more substantially built, and placed farther out from
shore. Fortified places were still numerous; the remains of thousands
of them of this age have been found in Ireland. But the forests were
cleared, wild animals disappeared, society became more settled, and we
may be sure that an increasing number of little hamlets were scattered
over the country.

Caves were resorted to during this epoch only in times of danger. One at
Heathbury Burn, in England, contained portions of the skeletons of
two individuals, surrounded by many articles of bronze and a mould for
casting bronze axes. It is not difficult to read the story. In some time
of sudden danger workers in bronze fled hither with their stores, but
owing to some cause were unable to escape the death from which they were
fleeing, and their bodies with their mineral stores, were lost to
sight until the modern explorer made them a subject of scientific
speculations.<11>

Illustration of Bronze Axes--First Form.-----------

The most important implement was the ax. Our civilization has originated
from many small things. It is difficult to overestimate the importance
of the ax in advancing civilization. The stone axes, easily blunted and
broken, could have made but little impression on the vast forests of
pine, oak, and beech, covering the greater part of Britain and the
continent in the Neolithic Age. Clearings necessary for pasture and
agriculture must unquestionably, then, have been produced principally
by the aid of fire. Under the edge of the bronze ax clearings would be
rapidly produced, pasture and arable land would begin to spread over the
surface of the country; with the disappearance of the forests the wild
animals would become scarce, hunting would cease to be so important,
agriculture would improve, and a higher culture inevitably follow. "When
first the sound of the