Carthaginians, obtained tin from islands mysteriously de- 

 nominated the Cassiterides which they reached by sailing 

 out of the portals of the Mediterannean, past what they cal- 

 led the pillars of Hercules, the Northern member of which we 

 know as the Rock of Gibraltar, and far northward across the 

 Bay of Biscay, these Cassiterides are identified by many writ- 

 ers as the Scilly Islands but it is at least open to conjectural 

 belief that the triremes of Carthage reached the shores of 

 Cornwall and drew thence tlieir supplies of tin, the sources 

 of origin of which mighty Rome vainly endeavored to dis- 

 cover. 



That tin was known and industrially employed very 

 early in the history of both Babylonia and Assyria has been 

 proven by the discovery in excavations made in tiiose coun- 

 tries of bricks and vases covered with white enamel derived 

 from tin oxide. The same peoples used copper to produce a 

 blue enamel. But the mine sources from which they drew the 

 tin employed remains, and in all probability will ever con- 

 tinue, an impenetrable mystery. 



The North American continent has so far failed to pro- 

 duce a tin mine of commercial importance and this, despite 

 the fact that the United States is today the world's largest 

 consumer of the metal, tin, and by far the world's largest 

 manufacturer of tin products. 



The critical significance of this situation was sharply 

 brought home to officials of the Government and to execu- 

 tives of concerns controlling the manufacture of tin cans 

 and similar containers during the world war when military 

 restrictions placed upon the handling and export of the metal 

 by tin producing countries suddenly threw into startling 

 relief the fact that every pound of tin used in the United 

 States for any purpose was derived from foreign sources of 

 supply, and could only be gotten into the United States 

 through ocean borne carriage, involving trans-atlantic or 

 trans-pacific voyages. 



Every geologist who has studied the rock formations of 

 Maine with care and expressed himself upon the subject has 

 entertained the belief which I heartily share that somewhere 

 within the boundaries of the State there lies and will even- 

 tually be revealed a tin-bearing deposit capable of yielding 

 a commercially economic supply of that most useful metal, 

 tin. 



As early as 1835, Dr. Charles T. Jackson, eminent in the 

 profession, and my earliest predecessor in the office of State 



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