332 Mr. J. W. Mallet's Report on the Chemical Examination of Antiquities 



but little knowledge of the localities from which it was derived. When 

 Pliny wrote, its principal sources were Cyprus, Campania, Gaul, and Spain, 

 especially the last-named country. Although England now supplies a very 

 large proportion of all the copper made use of in the world, there are no 

 traces in history of any having been smelted here so early as the Celtic 

 period, and the contrary seems to be proved by a passage of Cassar, De 

 Bell. Gall.,* where he says of Britain: "Nascitur ibi plumbum album in 

 Mediterraneis regionibus, in maritimis ferrum, sed ejus exigua est copia, cere 

 utuntur importato." Strabof also enumerates gold, silver, iron, tin, and lead, 

 among the products of Britain, but does not mention copper, the sixth of the 

 then well-known metals, which it is improbable he would have omitted if its 

 being found there were familiarly known. 



It seems on the whole most probable that by far the largest portion of the 

 tin used in the manufacture of the bronze of antiquity was brought from Corn- 

 wall by Phoenician or other merchants, and by them distributed over the south 

 of Europe, Syria, and Asia Minor. StraboJ and Pliny§ indeed state that it 

 came from Spain, and tinstone is known to exist in that country in the pro- 

 vince of Gallicia, but the quantity there found is not hkely to have supplied 

 the whole demand for this metal ; 'and their account is easily explained by 

 the consideration that the great commercial depot of the eastern merchants was 

 probably situated somewhere near Gades (now Cadiz) in the south of Spain, 

 and that to this place the tin was brought from the west, and from it was again 

 distributed to the consumers in the Mediterranean. Aristotle distinctly men- 

 tions, " TO!/ Kaaanepov tov KeXxtAoi/" in his treatise, De Mirab. Auscult. 



Though Plinyll tells us of tin, " Nulli rei sine mixtura utile," yet it was obvi- 

 ously well known in the separate state, as in Homer we read of the breastplate 

 of Agamemnon: 



" Toy c 1/701 cih-a oT/xoi taav fxeXavo^ KVcivoio, 

 AwicKU de ■)(^pV(jOiO, k-al el'hoai hcicranepoio. 



— II. xi. 24. 



And the same poet mentions metallic tin in several other places. Hesiod does 



* Lib. iv. c 34. f Lib. iv. 305. t Lib. iii. p. 219. ed. Almel. 



§ Lib. xxxiv. 0. 16. || Loc. cit. 



