Was There An Age Of Copper?

M. Jöertneiot, tne wen ünown i? renen technicist, in a communication to the Academie des Sciences, states his belief in the sonie time existence of an age of copper in addition to the three recognized arcbasological eons of stone, bronze (copper and tin) and iron. He bases his opinión cbiefly upon an analysis of a piece of copper which had been f ound by M. de Sarzec in the course of antiquarian investigations in Mesopotamia, or Al Jezira, as the Arabs desígnate the famoiis stretch of country between the Euphrates and the Tigris. The fragment thiis chemically determined proves to have neither tin nor zinc entering into its composition, there being simply traces of lead and arsenic. "Water and the atmosphere had made ravages into the specimen, which was practically a suboxide or a compound of protoxide and metallic copper. As the ruins from which the piece of metal was taken are authoiitatively considered to be more ancient than even those of BabyIon, M. Berthelot does not hesitate to pronrulgate the theory that an age of copper preceded the bronze and iron periods, especially as the examination of the component parts of a portion of a metallic scepter which, it is alleged, belonged to a pharaoh who reigned in Egypt some 8,500 y,rs B. C, showed i:o