4 PAPERS, ETC. 



Pliny calls lead " Nigrum plumbum," i.e. " Black lead," 

 to distinguish it from tin, which he calls " Candidum," i.e. 

 "white." He says, "We use Hack lead for pipes and 

 sheets. It is extracted from the ground with considerable 

 labour in Spain, and throughout Gaul, but in Britain it 

 occurs near the surface so abundantly, that a law has been 

 spontaneously enacted to prevent its production beyond a 

 certain quantity." Hut. Nat. xxxiv. 17, s. 49. 



In the Life of Agricola by Tacitus (c. 32) a speech 

 is attributed to the British leader Galgacus, in which 

 servitude in the mines is especially mentioned as the 

 consequence of defeat : u Ibi tributa, et metalla, et creteraj 

 servientium pamre." This servitude, as we learn from 

 Diodorus (1. c), was dreadfully severe. 



Britain had supplied tin as an article of traffic long 

 before the Roman invasion. It must have come from 

 Cornwall, since it is found in uo other county. Although 

 it docs not appear that the Koman roads ever extended 

 into Cornwall, nor that they had cities or large encamp- 

 ments there, yet many coins of the Emperors Antoninus, 

 Domitian, Valentinian, and others, have been found, and it 

 is mentioned more particularly that Boman coins have been 

 discovered in the stream-works of Bodmin parish, among 

 which was one of Vespasian.* The chief use of the tin 

 brought from Cornwall probably was to serve as a flux for 

 copper. The copper by itself would have been nearly 

 infusible ; the tin by itself would have been weak, soft, 

 and comparativcly useless ; but when a small quantity of 

 tin was added to the copper, this refractory metal was 

 subducd, and the bronze or bell-metal, which resulted from 



* Borlase, Olservaiions on ile AtitiquUics of Cornwall, 1754, p. 278. 

 Carew, Survey, p. 8. Charles Sandhoe Gilbert, History of Cornwall, 1820, 

 vol. I., p. 253. 



