58 Mr R. Edmonds jun. on the Fragments of a 



On the Fragments of a Bronze Furnace (supposed to be Phoe- 

 nician) discovered near St Michael's Mount, — the Itkin of 

 Diodorus Siculus. By Richard Edmonds jun., Esq.* 



I use the word Iktin advisedly, having been informed by a friend, 

 who has consulted the best editions of the original work at the British 

 Museum, that this is the word used by Diodorus, and not Iktis ; for 

 which last name, although universally adopted, the only authorities 

 are his translators, French and English as well as Latin, who as 

 Ictin happens to be the accusative case,f have assumed that the 

 nominative was Iktis, whereas (admitting the word to be declinable) 

 Iktin might be the nominative with as much propriety as Ictis. 

 Moreover, the most ancient name by which the Mount was known, 

 after it became a religious cell, was Dinsell, or Dynsull,X a mere 

 corruption probably of Iktin- cell, or ''Ktin-cell. 



As Ictin thus appears to have been the ancient name of the 

 Mount, let us dwell for a moment on its etymology. Ik being the 

 Cornish word for cove or port, Ik-tin signifies port-tin or (according 

 to the English idiom) tin port^ — a name as appropriate and at the 

 same time as indefinite as could have been given by the Phoeni- 

 cians, who sought to conceal the place from whence they pro- 

 cured their tin. It is generally supposed that they obtained their 

 tin first from Spain : when they had discovered it in Mount's Bay, 

 and had exported it from the Mount, they might, in order to 

 distinguish it from their Spanish tin, have called it Bre tin (Mount 

 tin), bre being the Cornish word for mount. Now Bretin, by our 

 continental neighbours, is pronounced Bretagne — the very name of 

 that part of France which is called after Britain ; so that Britain 

 and Bretagne are apparently mere different pronunciations of Bre- 

 tin.\ The name by which tin was known amongst the Phoenicians 

 and Chaldeans has undergone considerable changes since its intro- 



* Vid. Penzance Natural History, and Antiquarian Society's report for 



t " ui Tr}v V7170V <7r^o'/,ii[jjiV7iv f/jsv TTjg BPzrraviXYjg ovo/Ma^ofisvriv ds 

 IXTIV. to an island close to Britain named Iktin, Lib. 5. c. 22. 



I Carew's Survey of Cornwall, edited by Lord de Dunstanville, p. 376. 



§ In the Celtic, it mattered not whether ik or tin were placed first. The word 

 porth, for example, which is synonymous with ik, Bovaetiiaes follows the name to 

 which it is joined, as in Perran-porth, although generally it precedes it, as in 

 Porth-curnow. 



II The new derivation of Britain will not appear improbable, when we con- 

 sider that the most striking object, as well as chief place, in the very small 

 part of Britain known to the Tyrians, must have been the Mount, then called 

 Bre. The learned Bochart derived the name Bretanikee, the Greek word for 

 Britain, from the Pho?nician or Hebrew words haratanac (the land of tin.) 



