black resin, these must win our admiration all the more, as the manufactures of the period, excepting of course during the final transition to the Iron-Age, were indisputably carried on without the help of iron or steel tools.

On the other hand down to the very end of the Bronze-Age nothing was known of soldering and gilding in fire. Instead of this it was usual to employ thin sheets of gold-plating.

Contrasted with the elegant forms and decoration, whether the older spiral or later ring and wave ornaments, there is an evident awkwardness in pictorial representations, which were first used to any great extent during the Later Bronze-Age both on movables. and monuments. In the North, as one might expect, they occur first in the old Danish lands, where already at the close of the Stone-Age feeble attempts had been made at such pictorial ornamentations. That they were connected with the eastern current is significantly shown by the fact that they occur most numerously in Scania or the eastern districts of Denmark, and especially northwards on the Scandinavian peninsula. On large stones in graves and on exposed "Heller" or natural rock-surfaces they here form the Helleristninger or rock-sculptures, as they are called, whole series of pictures manifestly referring to the daily struggle and ordinary round of life as well as to higher religious ideas. This picture-writing, which along with other monuments from the Later Bronze-Age followed the evident spread of population far beyond the northern boundaries of the Bronze-Age right up to north Sweden and Norway, is of double importance; since, with this

exception, we have hitherto failed to discover any contemporary writing and inscriptions whatever on objects small or great from the Age of Bronze proper either in the North or in other lands of Europe. On the other hand inscriptions appear on bronze weapons from the old Culture-lands Egypt Assyria and China, dating back to the years 1500-1300 B.C. Several of these inscriptions however may, like similar inscriptions on Greek and Italian bronzes, be of a comparatively late period, since such bronze articles were employed not so much for daily use as for votive offerings or gifts of sacrifice to the gods.

The Northern rock-sculptures, viewed in connection with a few barrows or stone-cairns (Steenrör) containing burnt bodies and bronzes, and also some scattered finds of bronze objects pointing to the latest eastern and occasionally pure Hungarian forms, and sometimes containing traces of a new metal, zinc, clearly suggest a somewhat more permanent settlement from the south of the distant wilds of northern Sweden.

The same is also true of the south and west of Norway. Owing to its situation on the Atlantic it was more accessible and milder in climate.

About the close of the Bronze-Age these forms must have reached in Sweden to Norrland, or lat. 62°, and in Norway beyond Throndhjem to about lat. 66° N.,that is, in Sweden three and in Norway seven degrees further north, than the permanent colonisation of Scandinavia can be shown to have reached in the Earlier Age of Bronze.

As regards the rock-sculptures however, it should be borne in mind that those of the northern provinces are

as a rule considerably later than those of the south in Scania, and Bohuslehn and Smaalehnene in Norway, and are also mostly derived from a time when iron began to come into general use even in the higher North.

It is in short clear that even the considerable culture and numerous population of the Bronze-Age both from west and east were in no condition to give any great extent or importance to these northern settlements, as compared with the settlement of southern Scandinavia. Only the Mälar provinces as far north as the river Dal and southern Norway can have been more thickly peopled, and that hardly before the close of the BronzeAge or even the commencement of the Age of Iron in the more southern parts of the North. But here, as well as in east Sweden, in comparison with districts more to the south-west, there is a very remarkable decline in the number of graves and other memorials of the Bronze-Age. Many of the bronze objects, as the variety of the cast-finds proves, were imported from the south, especially from the old Danish lands and the east of north Germany. On account of their costliness in such far-away tracts they must long have been used in conjunction with implements of stone. Accordingly they do not present enough richness variety and individuality of type to justify us in speaking of a Bronze-culture characteristic of Sweden and Norway alone. As in the Stone-Age, so also now the actual seat of culture in Scandinavia was still confined to Scania and the rest of the old Danish lands. Thence it spread its rays stronger than before-though still faint and slowly-away to the more distant and incle

ment north; while eastwards it spent its last efforts on the coasts of Finland.

In the old Danish lands an unusual life and stir, nay, an exceedingly remarkable degree of luxury must have prevailed during the Bronze-Age, especially after the fusion of the western and eastern streams of culture and people. While in the north of Sweden and Norway the more primitive conditions of the StoneAge-in part at least-had scarcely yet vanished, the Bronze-culture had here completely gained the upperhand. Original influences from various quarters and local conditions and developments must have produced distinct peculiarities of taste &c. in the different districts down to the very close of the period. Only in the large characteristic features did a prominent uniformity prevail.

Amid the crags of north Sweden and Norway hunting and fishing doubtless continued to form the staple means of living for the population. And for these pursuits simpler implements of stone and bone did well enough. In the Danish lowlands on the contrary hunting and fishing were driven back by cattle-rearing and agriculture still more than in the Later Stone-Age. In illustration of this it is noticeable that arrow-heads and fish-hooks of bronze, which were generally used during the Bronze-Age in more southern lands, very seldom turn up in Denmark and the rest of the North. Besides the finds in graves and elsewhere of the hides and bones of domestic animals and even bridles horseornaments and figures of horses' heads with many others, the rock-sculptures in the south of Scandinavia prove that the Bronze-Age people had fully developed

the breeding of domestic animals. The horse was used both for riding and driving. So also small cars of solid bronze and various ornamental fittings for the like have been repeatedly found. The existence of agriculture is attested by many of the rock-sculptures already mentioned, representing ploughs with their teams. Moreover wheat and millet straw ears and chaff have been found with a number of bronze objects covered up in a bronze hanging-vase in Laaland, an island which to this day is celebrated for its luxuriant wheat crops. Under such circumstances we can hardly doubt that here, as in other lands, various sorts of grain were grown, especially barley for brewing beer. Bees were also cultivated both for mead and wax, which, it appears, was much used for moulds to cast the finer articles of bronze.

Navigation, so important both for the internal traffic of the North, where the land is split up and everywhere washed by the sea, and also for more extensive trade-connexions with other countries, was now improved to a degree unknown before. So long as the inhabitants of the North were without metal tools they would be forced to content themselves with making their boats of heavy trunks hollowed out, or of a wooden framework covered with hides. Their larger vessels were constructed of planks laboriously fitted together, like the boats still used by several Stone-Age peoples in the South Seas. Improvement in ship-building first became possible with the introduction of metal implements. It is obvious that the new Bronze-Age peoples, who immigrated by land through the centre of Europe to the Baltic regions, and who had hitherto needed