?0 MINES OF CHAP. II. 



explore them satisfactorily. The same traveller 

 remarked on the island ores of lead resembling 

 tin, which the rain had discovered to view, but 

 which were not dug up, because the inhabitants 

 felt a disinclination to work in mines 1 . The 

 same author found on the island of Milo, which 

 in former times, under the name of Melos, had 

 been celebrated for its alum and sulphur, the 

 latter substance, and also iron, which was taken 

 out of the millstone quarries 2 . The division of 

 the island in which the iron is found bears from 

 it the name St%otwv^e. 



In all probability the mines here noticed, or 

 at least a great part of them, were worked at an 

 earlier period than those in the western islands, 

 in the vicinity of Italy, although some of the 

 latter must have been in operation in a remote 

 age ; for the Greeks in the time of Homer ob- 

 tained copper 3 from Temesa, an island near 

 Upper Italy. Some, from other parts of that 

 poet's works, have been led to the opinion that 

 the Temesa he mentions was a city in the island 

 of Cyprus. In the time of Strabo, however, the 

 mines on the Italian island of the same name 

 are spoken of as having been formerly produc- 

 tive of that metal. The island Pithecusa, oppo- 



1 Tournefort, Voyage au Levant, t. i. p. 67 



2 Idem, t. i. p. 100. 



3 " where I go to purchase copper." Odyss. book i. 



verse 184. 



