320 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



celebrated in the records of Greece and of our own country. 

 It is situated in the north-west, and, with a large tract of 

 intervening sea, hes opposite to Germany, Gaul, and Spain, 

 by far the greater part of Europe. Its former name was 

 Albion, but at a later period all the islands, of which we shall 

 just now briefly make mention, were included under the name 

 of Britanniae. . . . Timseus,* the historian, says that an 

 island called Mictis is within six days' sail of Britanniae, in 

 which white-leadf is found, and that the Britons sail over to 

 it in boats of osier covered with sewed hides" {lib. iv., ch. xxx.). 

 Further on Pliny writes, " Midacritus was the first who 

 brought tin from the island called Cassiteris. . . . Danais 

 was the first who passed over in a ship from Egypt to Greece. 

 Before his time they used to sail on rafts. Even at the 

 present day they are made in the British Ocean of wicker- 

 work covered with hides" {lib. vii., ch. Ivii.). 



There appears some confusion here in the geography, 

 which is not to be wondered at, for the Greek and Eoman 

 geographers, borrowing their knowledge from the Phoenician 

 merchants, seem to have a very indistinct notion of the pre- 

 cise locality of those islands. It is not unlikely that Corn- 

 wall itself, or a part of it, or even small islands then existing 

 in Mount's Bay and elsewhere, is meant, particularly in the 

 relation of Timseus, and also in that of Diodorus ; even St. 

 Michael's Mount, in Mount's Bay (now and for some time 

 past a shipping port with a quay), has been by some modern 

 writers supposed to be the island referred to, whence the tin 

 was taken by the Britons in carts, that island being easily 

 accessible for carts, &c., at low water and at half-tides. 

 There is an old tradition there in the west of Cornwall 

 that a large portion of the south-w^est coast in Mount's Bay, 

 &c., was early submerged and lost in a grand inroad of the 

 ocean. A portion of the bay near the west side, about a mile 

 from the shore, where ships frequently anchor, is always 

 called " the Lake," and " Gwavas Lake," and I myself have 

 seen, on the low flat sandy beach near Marazion and the 

 Mount, at low water (the tide receding largely there), many 

 upright stumps of large trees imbedded in the sand and mud. 



Camden has some statements and observations on this 

 particular subject, and I may again briefly quote from him. 

 He says, " The inhabitants of the west eud of Cornwall are 

 of opinion that the promontory of the Land's End did once 

 reach farther to the west. The neighbours will tell you. 



* Timseus, an historian of Sicily, who flourished 262 B.C. All his 

 works are lost. 



t White-lead = PhimhiLvi album ; the Latin word stannuvi denoted 

 originally a compound of silver and lead, and was not used to denote 

 tin until the fourth century. 



