822 



TIN TOD. 



The price of tin-plate grain-tin is usually about 

 5s. per cwt. above the price of refined tin. 



Until 1838 all the tin of Cornwall paid a duty 

 of 4s. per 120 Ibs. to the duke of Cornwall, or to 

 the sovereign when there was no duke: the fees 

 to the officers, and the loss of time, were equal to 

 Is. more. This duty is now however abolished, 

 and the miners reap the benefit. 



The only part of Europe besides Great Britain 

 in which tin is now obtained in any quantity is 

 Germany. There are mines in Bohemia, Saxony, 

 and Silesia, and the produce is sufficient to supply 

 a large proportion of the demand for this metal in 

 tlmt part of Europe. There are some mines of 

 high antiquity in Spain, in Gallicia, but we have 

 no information respecting their present state. It 

 was not known to exist in any part of France till 

 the year 1809, when it was discovered not far from 

 Limoges, in the department of Haute Vienne; and, 

 in the year 1817, it was accidentally found in the 

 south of Brittany, not far from the mouth of the 

 river Loire. A marine officer, who had long been 

 detained as a prisoner of war in England, and had 

 been quartered in Cornwall in the neighbourhood 

 of the tin-mines, returned to his native town of 

 Piriac, a small sea-port of the department of the 

 Lower Loire. Going out sea-fishing one day, and 

 wanting some weights for his lines, he picked up a 

 pebble on the shore, which appearingtohim unusually 

 heavy, he took it home to compare with a piece of 

 Cornish stream tin which he had brought from the 

 place of his captivity, and found it to be the same 

 substance. He gave notice of his discovery in the 

 proper quarter, and M. Dufrenoy, now a distin- 

 guished French geologist, then a young aspirant of 

 the school of mines, was sent with another to in- 

 vestigate the matter, and the report they made 

 shows a remarkable uniformity of structure be- 

 tween that part of Brittany and the tin district of 

 Cornwall on the opposite side of the channel. 

 The country between the mouth of the Loire and 

 Piriac is composed of granite and slate, and it is 

 at the junction of these rocks that the tin ore is 

 chiefly found. They met with veins traversing 

 the rocks, and a considerable quantity of stream tin 

 both in the form of pebbles and of sand ; and their 

 impression was, that this stream tin was produced 

 by the wearing of the rocks containing the veins 

 by the action of the waves; the same action going 

 on now, as in Cornwall in remote ages. The con- 

 tinued large importations of tin from England into 

 France shows that this discovery has not as yet 

 been attended with any great results. 



By far the largest quantity of tin that has yet 

 been found in any part of the world is, after Corn- 

 wall, in the Indian Archipelago. It has been met 

 with as well on the continent as in the islands, 

 from about 8 north to 5 south latitude, and from 



to 107 of east longitude. It is found irt 

 Siam, and in numerous parts of the Malayan pen- 

 insula, and in the islets on its coast, and in the 

 island of Borneo; but the richest mines are in the 

 island of Banca, which lies oil the south-eastern 

 part of Sumatra. The discovery was accidental, 

 in the year 1710, when some stream tin was 

 smelted in a fire that had been made on the ground. 

 The ore is wholly of this description, and occurs, 

 as in Cornwall, in alluvial deposits ; it is seldom fol- 

 owed below thirty or forty feet deep, and the beds 

 ot ore frequently lie within three or four feet of the 

 surface. The mines are exclusively worked by 

 Chinese under the authority of the government, 

 and they deliver the metal at a fixed rate. The 

 smelting is conducted by a very simple and rude 

 process, and yields from 50 to 70 per cent, of pure 

 metal; where it yields less than 30 per cent, it is 

 not thought worth working. In thirty years after 

 the discovery the mines yielded no less than 3870 

 tons, and in the most prosperous times they are 

 said to have produced about 3500 tons annually, 

 but latterly not more than half that quantity. The 

 mines are in the northern and western parts of the 

 island, but a large portion of it yet remains to be 

 explored, and in the opinion of Sir Stamford Raf- 

 fles, there seems no reason to apprehend any defi- 

 ciency in the ore for centuries. Mr Crawford 

 thinks that the falling off is more to be ascribed 

 to a want of skill in the art of mining than to any 

 deficiency of the ore. The higher mountains of 

 Banca are of granite, and the stream tin is found 

 in gravel composed of granite and other primary 

 rocks. Sir S. Raffles is of opinion that the tin 

 ore found in the Malayan peninsula and islands, 

 including that of Banca, has been originally washed 

 down from the great central mountains of the con- 

 tinent which terminate the eastern peninsula. The 

 principal demand for Banca and Malay tin is in 

 China, which is probably not less than 1000 tons in 

 the year, and Bengal takes off about half than 

 quantity, the remainder going to America and 

 Europe. 



TOD, Lieutenant-colonel JAMES, of the hon. 

 East India Company's service, was a native of 

 Scotland, and born about the year 1782. In March, 

 1800, at the age of seventeen or eighteen, he left 

 England for India, and obtained a commission in 

 the second Bengal European regiment. Thence he 

 volunteered for the Molucca isles, was transferred 

 to the marines, served as one on board the Morn- 

 ington, and afterwards, as he expressed it, " ran 

 the gauntlet from Calcutta to Hurdwar." In De- 

 cember, 1805, when a subaltern in the subsidiary 

 force at Gwalior, he was attached to the embassy 

 of his friend, Mr Graeme Mercer, sent at the close 

 of the Mahratta war to the camp of Sindhia, then 

 seated amongst the ruins of Mewar, which it 

 reached in the spring of 1806. This interesting 

 country (Rajpootana) became the scene of his 

 future official labours ; and it has fallen to the 

 lot of very few individuals to perform services so 

 important, considered t with reference to the scope 

 of his duties. His disposition was eminently frank 

 and open, warm and sensitive, yet distinguished by 

 all those qualities which make up our idea of 

 amiability. His character was firm, independent, 

 and energetic, bordering on enthusiasm. A strong 

 taste for geographical, historical, and archaeological 

 pursuits, was developed by the accident which 

 placed him in a country rich in those objects and 

 recollections which gratify the antiquary, a coun- 



