110 Rev. S. Greatheed on the Kno-joledge and Commerce 



was procured from some western islands, the situation of 

 which was unknown. From that date to the Christian era, 

 the successive Greek writers, Aristotle, Posidonius, Polybius, 

 Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo, manifest cleai'er information. 

 They knew that tin was obtained from the northern confines 

 of Spain and Lusitania ; and likewise from Britain, ovei'-land 

 through Gaul ; but they mostly distinguish the latter country 

 from the Cassiterides, without assigning the situation of those 

 islands. Roman writers, even to a later date, discover less 

 information, and more incredulity, cm the subject. Pliny gives 

 the name of Plumbum caiididum to the Cassiteron, or Tin, of 

 the Greeks ; and scouts, as fictions, the reports that it had 

 ever been procured from islands in the Atlantic Ocean, or any 

 where but from Spain and Lusitania. The name of Stanmim, 

 together with the proper uses of tin, he attributes to a metal 

 which he describes as found intermixed with silver and Pluvi- 

 bitin nigrum (or Lead*). With the latter metal, he repre- 

 sents Britain peculiarly to have abounded ; but he does not 

 intimate, that either Sfannum or Plumbum candidum (or al- 

 bum) had ever been found there. Yet Julius Ca?sar, above 

 a century earlier, had said, Nascitur ibi plumbum album -f. If, 

 however, he meant Tin, his information was erroneous ; for he 

 represents it as a production, not of the maritime, but the in- 

 land part of Britain ; apparently confounding it with our in- 

 terior lead mines. Of these, Pliny seems to have been better 

 informed ; the Romans having then gained possession of Der- 

 byshire : but of British tin, he appears to have been wholly 

 ignorant ; Cornwall being unconquered, probably, till the 

 reign of Antoninus ; and the Romans being, of all ancient po- 

 lished nations, the least commercial. 



The Latin term Sfannum, appears to have been adopted 

 from the ancient Cornish, Stca7i, or the Welsh Ystaen; for 

 which, Plwm givynn (sjnionymous with Plumbum album) is 

 sometimes used. Another term, Alcam (from Can signifying 

 bright), is, however, always used for Titi, in the Welsh Bible ; 

 perhaps, from a doubt whether that metal was meant. The 

 expressions, " Thy silver is become dross, — I will purge away 

 thy dross, and take away all thy tin:f," accord better with the 

 Stannum, than with the Plumbum candidum, of Pliny. The 

 Hebrew term Bedil, translated Tin, likewise signifies, " that 

 which is separated;" and the Greek translators (who every 

 where else render it cassiteros, or tin) here translate it meta- 

 phorically, " the wicked." That the prophet Ezekiel meant 

 proper tin, appears, from his enumeration of it with silver, 



* Nat. Hist. lib. xxxiii. cap. 16, 17. f Bell. Gall. v. 10. 



X Isaiali, i. 25, 25. 



