106 MINES IN 



CHAP. ii. 



men the access to the long-celebrated but pre- 

 viously hidden treasures of the Cassiterides or 

 Tin Island 1 . Until the Romans had completed 

 the conquest of the island, the Britons worked 

 the mines of tin and lead in a mode they had 

 themselves discovered 2 . We are not so well 

 acquainted with the manner in which they were 

 explored, as with the subsequent operations of 

 smelting and refining the metal. The business 

 of smelting was conducted with great simplicity. 

 The ore was broken and placed in a pit dug 

 in the ground, with wood between it and on the 

 sides of the heap ; the wood was set on fire, and 

 by this the ore containing tin and lead was 

 brought to a flux. The separation of the metal 

 from the scoriae was effected by passing the fluid 

 metal out of the pit in which it had been melted, 

 through a narrow canal or gutter, into another 

 by the side of it. Such places have been ex- 

 amined in several parts of the island by Pennant, 

 who found in them both chared wood and scoriae. 

 Though this process was simple, it seems to have 

 been effectual ; for so little metal was left in the 

 scoriae, that it would not pay in modern times 

 the expense of extracting it 3 . Polybius pro- 

 mises in a passage of his history 4 to give a cir- 

 cumstantial description of the process of prepar- 



1 Strabo, iii. p. 265. ~ Strabo, i. p. c. 



3 Pennant, vol. i. p. 58. 4 Polybius, iii. 57- 



