CoLENSo. — Memorabilia, Ancient and Modern. 319 



Father of History." In writing of the natural productions of 

 Europe he says, " Of that part of Europe nearest to the 

 west I am not able to speak with decision. Neither am I 

 better acquainted with the islands called the Cassiterides, from 

 which we are said to have our tin. I have endeavoured, but 

 without success, to meet with some one who, from ocular 

 observation, might describe to me the sea which lies in that 

 part of Europe. It is nevertheless certain that both our tin 

 and our amber are brought from those extreme regions " 

 (lib. in., "Thalia," ch. cxv.) Scanty as this information is, 

 yet you will have noticed its charming careful simplicity, 

 which is also the more pleasing seeing that of late years 

 much of what Herodotus had written concerning little-known 

 and distant countries, and which had been called in question, 

 .has since proved to be in the main correct. 



Thfe second notice is by the historian Diodorus Siculus, 

 who flourished about 50 B.C. Diodorus says, "The Britons 

 who lived in those parts, digging tin out of a rocky sort of 

 ground, carried it in carts at low water to certain neighbour- 

 ing islands, and thence the merchants transported it into 

 Gaul" ; and, again, he pleasingly observes, " The inhabitants 

 thereof, by conversation with merchants trading thither for 

 tin, became remarkably courteous to strangers." Here I may 

 also fittingly quote a nice observation respecting our Mother- 

 country made at a very early date by another historian, 

 Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who was famed for his caution 

 and fidelity in his histories, and who lived about 30 B.C. 

 Dionysius, in his " Periegesis," says "that no other islands 

 whatever can claim equality with those of Britain." 



The third record concerning Britain and its tin is found in 

 the work of the celebrated Roman geographer Strabo, who 

 floui'ished in the age of Augustus and Tiberius, and who died 

 in the year 25 a.d. Strabo says, " The Cassiterides (from the 

 Greek word kassiteros = tin) are ten in number, lying near 

 each other in the Atlantic Ocean, towards the north from the 

 haven of the Artabri ""■ {lib. iii.). 



The fourth mention of the subject is by the great Roman 

 historian and naturalist Pliny, who lived in the first century 

 of our Christian era, and who lost his life in that terrible 

 eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed the towns of Hercu- 

 laneum and Pompeii, on the 24th August, 79 a.d., while too 

 closely and fearlessly engaged in investigating that grand 

 phenomenon of nature, as is graphically written by his 

 nephew, Pliny the Younger, in his letters describing it to 

 his friend Tacitus, the historian. Pliny, the elder, writes, 

 " Opposite to this coast is the island called Britannia, so 



* Lusitania and Cape Finisterre. 



