by friction of two pieces of wood, especially at a time when there is reason to suppose they were unacquainted with the existence of iron as a metal. I have, however, already mentioned[1] that for the purpose of producing sparks, pyrites is as effective as iron, and was indeed in use among the Romans. Now the lower beds of our English chalk are prolific of pyrites, though not to the same extent as the upper beds are of flint; and it is not impossible that the use of a hammer-stone of pyrites, in order to form some instrument of flint, gave rise to the discovery of that method of producing fire, the invention of which the old myth attributed to Pyrodes, the son of Cilix. When exposed upon or near the surface of the ground, pyrites is very liable to decomposition, and even if occurring with ancient interments it would be very likely to be disregarded. This may account for the paucity of the notices of its discovery. Some, however, exist, and I have already mentioned[2] instances where nodules of pyrites have been discovered on the Continent in association with worked flints, both of Neolithic and Palæolithic age.
There are also instances of its occurrence in British barrows. That careful observer, the late Mr. Thomas Bateman, found, in the year 1844, in a barrow on Elton Moor,[3] near the head of a skeleton, "a piece of spherical iron pyrites, now for the first time noticed as being occasionally found with other relics in the British tumuli. Subsequent discoveries," he says, "have proved that it was prized by the Britons, and not unfrequently deposited in the grave, along with the weapons and ornaments which formed the most valued part of their store." With the same skeleton, in a "drinking-cup," with a small celt and other objects of flint, was a flat piece of polished iron ore, and twenty-one "circular instruments." In another barrow. Green Low,[4] Mr. Bateman discovered a contracted skeleton, having behind the shoulders a drinking-cup, a splendid flint dagger, apiece of spherical pyrites or iron ore, and a flint instrument of the circular-headed form. Lower down were barbed flint arrow-heads and some bone instruments. In Dowe Low,[5] a skeleton was accompanied by a bronze dagger and an "amulet or ornament of iron ore," together with a large flint implement that had seen a good deal of service. A broken nodule of pyrites showing signs of friction was found with a bronze dagger in a
