The Swiss antiquarians are of opinion that the men of bronze suddenly
invaded and extirpated the men of flint; and that at some still later
period, another stronger and more skilful race, supposed to have been
Celts from Gaul, came armed with iron weapons, to whom the men of
bronze succumbed, or with whom, more probably, they gradually
intermingled. When iron, or rather steel, came into use, its
superiority in affording a cutting edge was so decisive that it seems
to have supplanted bronze almost at once;*
[footnote...
Mr. Mushet, however, observes that "the general use of hardened
copper by the ancients for edge-tools and warlike instruments, does
not preclude the supposition that iron was then comparatively
plentiful, though it is probable that it was confined to the ruder
arts of life. A knowledge of the mixture of copper, tin, and zinc,
seems to have been among the first discoveries of the metallurgist.
Instruments fabricated from these alloys, recommended by the use of
ages, the perfection of the art, the splendour and polish of their
surfaces, not easily injured by time and weather, would not soon be
superseded by the invention of simple iron, inferior in edge and
polish, at all times easily injured by rust, and in the early stages
of its manufacture converted with difficulty into forms that required
proportion or elegance."--(Papers on Iron and Steel, 365-6.) By some
secret method that has been lost, perhaps because no longer needed
since the invention of steel, the ancients manufactured bronze tools
capable of taking a fine edge. in our own time, Chantrey the
sculptor, in his reverence for classic metallurgy, had a bronze razor
made with which he martyred himself in shaving; but none were found
so hardy and devoted as to follow his example.
...]
the latter metal continuing to be employed only for the purpose of