402 EARLY MAN IN BRITAIN. [CHAP. xi. 



Tin, like copper, from its softness, is unfitted for 

 cutting purposes, and therefore does not mark an era in 

 the civilisation of the world. It was used in the Bronze 

 age unalloyed, merely for purposes of ornament, and for 

 inlaying pottery, such as that discovered in the pile- 

 dwellings of the lake of Bourget. 1 



Tin in Scandinavia, Germany, and Britain. 



In our enquiry into the origin of the Bronze civilisa- 

 tion, it is unnecessary to notice the tin districts of 

 Sweden and Finland, which have only been worked in 

 modern times. 



In Germany tin has been worked from time im- 



the height of some two feet ; so that, externally, the apparatus was not 

 unlike a large chair built solid to the seat, enclosing a chimney-pot extend- 

 ing from the middle of it nearly to the floor-level. A blast was employed, 

 produced by an old pair of weezy blacksmith's bellows, apparently of 

 English make, placed behind the screen of masonry, the tuyere being 

 inserted about four inches above the bottom. The tap-hole, which was on 

 the opposite side, was kept constantly open. 



" In order to carry on the operation of smelting, the ore which had 

 been collected by the smaller children, and had subsequently been broken 

 and roughly picked over by a bigger brother, was finally charged into the 

 furnace, alternately with handfuls of fuel, by the mother, while the 

 father blew the bellows. Charcoal made from the roots of a species of 

 heath, locally plentiful, was employed as fuel, no flux of any kind was 

 used, and the metal and slag issuing from the open tap-hole were received 

 in a 'fragment of a broken cast-iron pot. A very small quantity only of 

 slag was produced, which, falling from time to time into the broken pot 

 with the metal, was, as it set, removed with an iron crook. 



" When a sufficient quantity of tin had accumulated in the broken pot, 

 it was cast into strips in a sandstone mould. 



" The quantity produced did not exceed a few pounds per hour, and I 

 was informed that after being cast into strips it was usually sold to 

 travelling tinkers for the purpose of tinning copper vessels." 



1 Chantre, L'Age du Bronze. 



