74 SUPPOSED TRACES OF PHOENICIAN COMMERCE. 



produced any quantity of this metal. The Government do not 

 work any mines of tin. The quantity being produced at present 

 is very small, chiefly by streamers ; or rather labourers, while 

 out of their regular employment, search some of the rivers 

 near the granite hills in Galicia and in Zamora. I cannot 

 learn that there is any tin mining in the country." 



Unless, then, the ancients had some source of tin with 

 which we are unacquainted, it seems to be well established, 

 and is indeed admitted even by Sir Cornewall Lewis, that 

 the Phoenician tin was mainly derived from Cornwall, and, 

 consequently, that even at this early period a considerable 

 commerce had been organized, and very distant countries 

 brought into connection with one another. Sir C. Lewis, 

 however, considers that the tin was " carried across Gaul to 

 Massilia, and imported thence into Greece and Italy." Doubt- 

 less much of it did in late times come by this route, but the 

 Phoenicians were in the plenitude of their power 1200 years 

 B.C., while Massilia was not built until 600 B.C. Moreover, 

 Strabo expressly says that in early times the Phoenicians 

 carried on the tin trade from Cadiz, which we must remember 

 was nearer to Cornwall than to Tyre or Sidon. 



We are, therefore, surely quite justified in concluding that 

 between B.C. 1500 and B.C. 1200 the Phoenicians were already 

 acquainted with the mineral fields of Spain and Britain ; and 

 under these circumstances it is, I think, more than probable 

 that they pushed their explorations still farther, in search of 

 other shores as rich in mineral wealth as ours. Indeed, we 

 must remember that amber, so much valued in ancient times, 

 could not have been obtained from any nearer source than 

 the coast of the German Ocean. 



Professor Nilsson has attempted, as already mentioned, 

 to show that the Phoenicians had settlements far up on the 

 northern shores of Norway. His arguments may be reduced 

 to seven, namely, the small size of the sword-handles, brace- 



