68 MINING IN 



CHAP. II. 



of iron was probably of a later date, and is de- 

 scribed in a variety of ways l . If the Oxford 

 marbles be authentic evidence, it was known 

 about the year 1431 before Christ. 



Tin was furnished to the Greeks by the Phoe- 

 nician traders, and it is probable they were sup- 

 plied with lead from the same source. There is 

 no passage in Homer from which it can be in- 

 ferred that at the period in question the Greeks 

 on the continent of Europe worked many mines, 

 though perhaps some of the precious metals may 

 have been found upon the surface, or so near it 

 as to be easily made useful. On the other hand, 

 on the islands the mines were numerous, if not 

 highly productive. In Crete and in Thasus 

 mines were explored, which had been opened by 

 the Phoenicians before those islands fell to the 

 Greek possession. Those in Crete were of iron, 

 but in Thasus they are represented as productive 

 in gold 2 . "From their gold mines ofScapte- 

 syle," says Herodotus, " they obtained on an 

 average eighty talents. Thasus itself did not 

 produce so much, but they were so affluent, that, 

 being generally exempt from taxation, the whole 

 of their annual revenue was two hundred 3 , and 



1 Causaubon in Rerum inventarum Onomastico, a. Ferrum. 



2 Herodotus, book vi. c. 46, 47- 



3 This revenue appears by a passage in Thucydides, lib. i. 

 cap. 100, to have been derived from the lands as well as the 

 mines, which reconciles an apparent contradiction in the text 

 of Herodotus. 



