TIN AND ITS NATIVE LAND. 239 



grand epoch in human history ; and, on the other side, the ap- 

 pearance of the mineral, not resembling any metallic substance, 

 and the rarity of its deposits, supposed knowledge among the 

 first miners of which we have hardly any other evidences. 

 What country, then, in which tin is produced, was sufficiently 

 civilized more than fifty centuries ago for its people to have 

 knowledge enough of mineralogy to recognize the metal in the 

 dark mineral that contains its oxide ; and which had such a 

 social organization as to make practicable the different operations 

 and enterprises on which its extraction depends ? * M. Germain 

 Bapst expressed the opinion, three years before our first visit to 

 Perak, in one of the most remarkable and interesting works that 

 have been published on the subject, that this country was the pen- 

 insula of Malacca. 



A curious relation has been traced between the names which 

 the Malays of the peninsula give to tin and' lead — tima poute 

 (white), tin, and tima itam (black), lead — and the names given 

 by Pliny — plumbum candidum (white lead, or tin), and plumbum 

 nigrum (black lead, or lead) ; and also between the Malay tima 

 and the English, Dutch, and Danish tin, the German zinn, and 

 the Swedish tenn. Etymologists ask if this Malayan application 

 of tin at a time when the kassterides islands, as yet without a 

 name, were lying in the solitude of their dense forests, and the 

 primitive populations of Switzerland, who also used tin for the 

 ornamentation of their earthen vessels, had not yet built their 

 lake villages, did not start from Malacca, and, carried by slow 

 migrations, but directly, and over the heads of the Assyrians 

 and Greeks, reach the extremity of Europe at a much later 

 period. 



Thus, this peninsula of Malacca, which is now covered by 

 virgin forests inhabited by wild orang-sakeys, dotted with 

 swamps that have to be crossed on elephants' backs, peopled by 

 rhinoceroses and tigers, may at that time have been at the head 

 of the world's civilization, and had its railroads, telegraphs, tele- 

 phones, temples and theatres, artists and journalists, deputies and 

 bankers, speculators and pickpockets — everything, in fact, that 

 appertains to the last expression of progress, but under very 

 different forms — perhaps even its Eiffel Tower in bamboo — while 

 Europe was still in the period of its orang-sakeys. Such is the 

 way of the world. Why should not every country have its turn ? 

 — Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from the Revue Sci- 

 entifique. 



A satisfactory report has been made of the results of the first year's working 

 of the new educational programme of the Central Provinces of India, in which 

 special provision is made for technical education. 



