Page:Ancient Bronze Implements.djvu/9



work which is now presented to the public has unfortunately been many years in progress, as owing to various occupations, both private and public, the leisure at my command has been but small, and it has been only from time to time, often at long intervals, that I have been able to devote a few hours to its advancement. During this slow progress the literature of the subject, especially on the Continent, has increased in an unprecedentedly rapid manner, and I have had great difficulty in at all keeping pace with it.

I have, however, done my best, both by reading and travel, to keep myself acquainted with the discoveries that were being made and the theories that were being broached with regard to bronze antiquities, whether abroad or at home, and I hope that so far as facts are concerned, and so far as relates to the present state of information on the subject, I shall not be found materially wanting.

Of course in a work which treats more especially of the bronze antiquities of the British Islands, I have not felt bound to enlarge more than was necessary for the sake of comparison on the corresponding antiquities of other countries. I have, however, in all cases pointed out such analogies in form and character as seemed to me of importance as possibly helping to throw light on the source whence our British bronze civilisation was derived.

It may by some be thought that a vast amount of useless trouble has been bestowed in figuring and describing so many varieties of what were after all in most cases the ordinary tools of the artificer, or the common arms of the warrior or huntsman, which differed from each other only in apparently unimportant particulars. But as in biological studies minute anatomy often affords the most trustworthy evidence as to the descent of any given organism