254» Mr. J. Phillips on Ancient Metallurgy and Mifiing 



Tin, the ore of which has been found at the surface in many 

 situations with auriferous sand and gravel, cannot have been 

 long unknown to the gold-finders of the East and the West. 

 Some one of the many accidents which may or rather must 

 have accompanied the melting of gold would disclose the na- 

 ture of the accompanying white metal, whose brilliance, duc- 

 tility, and very easy fusibility, would soon give it value. 



The melting o^ tin ore is, however, a step in advance of the 

 fusion of native gold. The gold was fused in a crucible 

 (xxxiii. p, 617, Hard.) made of white clay*, which only could 

 stand the heat and the chemical actions which that generated : 

 but tin ore would in this way of operation prove totally infu- 

 sible. It must be exposed at once to heat and a free carbo- 

 naceous element. The easiest way of managing this is to try 

 it on the open hearth. Perhaps some accidental fire in the 

 half-buried bivouacs of the Damnonii may have yielded the 

 precious secret. As to the fuel, we are told that pine-woods 

 were best for brass and iron (Hard, xxxiii. p. 621) ; but the 

 Egyptian papyrus was also used, and straw was the approved 

 fuel for gold. In the metalliferous country of Cornwall and 

 Devon, peat is plentiful; and an order of King John (1201) 

 allows the miners to dig tin, and turves to melt the tin, any- 

 where in the moors, and in the fees of bishops, abbots and 

 earls, as they had been used and accustomed. (Confirmed by 

 Edward I., Richard II. and Henry IV.-j-) 



These and other singular privileges, extending as far as the 

 lands on which the crown claimed rights, are long anterior to 

 the other rights of property in Cornwall, Mendip, Derbyshire 

 and the Forest of Dean, and go far to justify the supposition 

 of our modern mining laws being a relic of Roman, or per- 

 haps of earlier than Roman times. 



As the bellows was known at least 1000 years before Pliny, 

 we have here all the materials for a successful tin smelter's 

 hearth. If the smelting work was on waste land, and a little 

 sunk in the ground, we recognize the old 'bole' or 'bloomery ' 

 of Derbyshire, now only a traditional furnace, but anciently 

 the only one for the lead and iron of that country. 



Pure tin once obtained, there must intervene a long series 

 of trials and errors before its effect in combination with lead, 

 brass, silver, &c. could be known ; before the mode of con- 

 quering the tendency to rust in the act of soldering could be 

 discovered ; oil being in this respect as valuable to the tinner 

 as artificial chrysocolla was to the jeweller and goldsmith 

 (xxxiii. p. 621. Hard.). From all this it follows that the 



* Such as now is called Cornish chiy, for example, 

 t De la Beche, in Report on Geology of Cornwall. 



