2 Ofi the Natural Productions 



untried to supply the great and increasing demand. Thus 

 man ingeniously increases his supposed necessities, and is ever 

 seeking something new ; which, when the novelty wears off", 

 must be supplied by others, to an interminable series. 



The preceding remarks will be found generally applicable 

 to this country which we inhabit. It will be seen, on con- 

 sideration, that very few of the commonest necessaries of life 

 are the produce of our own, but imported from foreign lands : 

 I perhaps ought to say originally ; fruits, domestic animals, 

 the different species of grain, are originally natives of lands 

 far remote from their present naturalised abodes. It is the 

 object of this paper to take a brief and rapid view of the more 

 remarkable of these importations, and of the principal ones 

 which claim this island as their natural habitation. 



Britain, from the earliest periods of history, has been known 

 for its mineral treasures. There is no doubt that the Phoe- 

 nicians derived their supplies of tin from this island, though 

 whether through direct or indirect channels is uncertain. 

 The latter seems the more probable hypothesis ; though, per- 

 haps, the uncertainty respecting the position of the Cassiter- 

 ides, which exists in the ancient authors, may have arisen from 

 the care with which the Phoenicians, in the illiberal spirit of 

 monopoly, endeavoured to conceal the source whence that 

 mineral was derived. Tin was evidently considered much 

 inferior in value to gold and silver, and was abundant in Egypt 

 at a very early period ; the Greeks were well acquainted with 

 it at the time of the Trojan war, and it was in common use 

 among the Jews in the time of Moses. But to return : the 

 Carthaginians, under Himilco, in that celebrated voyage re- 

 specting which we cannot but regret the scantiness of the 

 materials that remain, reached the coast of England, or Al- 

 fionn, as it was then called ; and Pytheas, a voyager from 

 Marseilles previously to the time of Alexander the Great, was 

 acquainted with its southern and eastern shores.* England 

 was also known by name to Aristotle, the father of natural 

 history. But it is from the expedition of Julius Caesar into 

 Britain, and the account which he has transmitted to us, that 

 we derive the fullest information of what were the productions 

 and character of the country at that distant period, f He 

 tells us *' that the coast was thickly peopled, and that cattle 

 (pecora) were abundant. Instead of money, the inhabitants 

 employed iron and copper rings ; the copper was imported, 

 and the supply of iron was but scanty. Plumbum album (or 



* See Larclncr's Cabinet Cyclopaedia, Maritime and Inland Discovery, 

 vol. i. ; and Thomson's History of Chemistry, vol.i. p. 67. 

 f Gallic War, lib.v.$ 10. 



