of Tin among the ancient Nations. Ill 



iron, and lead, as articles of commerce which the Phoenicians 

 obtained from Tarshish, or Tartessus, in Spain*: but he else- 

 where describes it (with Isaiah) as if separated, by fusion, 

 from silver; in common, however, with iron, lead, and even 

 brass, or copper f; between the last of which, neither the He- 

 brews, Gi'eeks, nor Romans, used any name of distinction ; 

 Cuprum being formed from ^Es Cyprium, or Cyprian Brass. 



Moses mentions Tin, with Gold, Silver, Brass, Iron and 

 Lead, as part of the spoils of the Midianites if ; who had long 

 been principal carriers of Oriental merchandize §, and were 

 consequently very rich in precious metals ||. Whatever, there- 

 fore, is to be understood by Tin, when first mentioned in the 

 sacred history, it was more likely to have been procm'ed from 

 the East, than from the West, by the Midianites, long before 

 Britain could probably be inhabited, or even the Phoenicians 

 have passed into the Atlantic Ocean. The East Indies might 

 have been peopled six or seven centuries before; and Tin, 

 which is found abundantly at Banca, and in Siam, might have 

 passed, by barter, through Hindostan and Persia, into the 

 hands of the roving Midianites. 



The Greeks might, in Homer's time, be supplied by the 

 Phoenicians, with tin, from the Spanish mines. The only use 

 of it in the Trojan war, was that which Vulcan made to em- 

 bellish the arms of Achilles; and for this he was more likely 

 to be indebted to poetical invention, than to mercantile enter- 

 prise. When the Phoenicians, from Tartessus and Carthage, 

 began to obtain tin from Britain, they might choose to report 

 that all which they sold came from so remote and unknown a 

 country (the course to which they laboured to conceal), rather 

 than from any part of Spain, where other nations could more 

 easily have penetrated. W^hen that country was subdued, 

 and Carthage destroyed, by the Romans, in the second cen- 

 tury before Christ, their traffic ceased, and the Lusitanian 

 mines fell into the power of the conquerors ; but the Phocean 

 merchants of Marseilles obtained British tin from the depot 

 of St Michael's Mount ; whence it was fetched in boats to the 

 opposite coast of Gaul, carried on liorses to the upper Rhone, 

 and navigated down that river. {Diod.Sic. lib. v. c, 9.) When 

 the Romans conquered Gaul, and invaded Britain, the natives 

 of both countries seem to have abandoned a commerce, which 

 could only have enriched their oppressors, and have aug- 

 mented their cupidity ; and it was consigned to obhvion, till 

 the entire coiujuest of South Britain detected the unsuspected 

 treasures of Cornwall. 



* I^zckicI, xxvii. l2. f Ezckiel, xx. 18. | Numbers, xxxi. 23. 



§ Genesis, xxxvii. 2o, '2>i. || Judges, viii. 2i, 2(j. 



Such 



