Dr. Wall on the Ufe of Symbols. 259 
not, therefore, impofiible, that the Phoenician 
Navigators, who were always remarkably fecret 
concerning the country from whence they ob~ 
tained their tin, * might infinuate, that this 
metal was difcovered to them by the Deity, 
who prefided over the fea, (not the Neptune of 
the Greeks and Romans, but the more ancient 
Oceanus, who was, in Egypt, Phoenicia, and 
even Greece, in its earlieft periods, confounded 
with the Supreme Being.)f 
May I therefore be allowed to conjecture, that 
there was a prevailing tradition, that Tin was 
difcovered to the Phoenicians by Jupiter himfelf ? 
Bcrlafe admits the truth of this pofition in general, 
but infinuates, that, probably, the name was derived from 
a Phoenician word of fimilar found and import. 
Borla/e, Antiquities of Cornwall, Ch. VII. 
* See fome remarkable inftances of this difpofition in 
Bcrlafe' s Antiquities, Ch. VII.' 
f Some of the ancient Greek writers exprefsly call 
Oceanus by the titles of the Supreme Being. We have 
in Homer the following expreffions: 
'Slx.ta.vis, cPTrcp ytvtan; ir&thirct reruxlat 
Oceani, qui quidem Parens omnibus eft. 
Horn. Iliad. XIV. 246. 
Slxeatovrt Qusv ytttrtt. Id. V. 200. 
Oceanumque Deorum Parentem. 
And Plutarch, in his Ifis and Ofiris, fays direftly 
" 'Slxtavov OcrtptS'z, that Ofiris and Oceanus were the fame.’* 
See further in Bryant’s Account of Noah. V. II. 269. 
S 2 
If 
