326 PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. [aNNO 1753. 



at least l6 feet, at a moderate computation. This subsidence must have been 

 followed by a sudden inundation, and this inundation is likely not only to have 

 destroyed a great part of the inhabitants, but to have terrified others who sur- 

 vived into a total desertion of their shattered islands. By this means, as I ima- 

 gine, that considerable people, who were the Aborigines, and carried on the tin 

 trade with the Phenicians, Greeks, and Romans, were extirpated. These 

 islands are no longer what they were anciently, fertile in tin ; nor are there any 

 remains of such and so many ancient workings as could maintain a trade, so 

 coveted by some of the ancients, and so industriously concealed by others. 

 There are no mines to be seen in any of these islands, but only on one load (so 

 we call our tin veins) in Trescaw island, and the workings here are very incon- 

 siderable, and not ancient. It must therefore be matter of wonder where the 

 Phenicians, Greeks, and Romans, could have found such a plenty of that useful 

 metal. Whatever resources they had from Cornwall, formerly reckoned pro- 

 bably among the Cassiterides, great part of their tin must doubtless have come 

 from these islands; but where it was found is uncertain. Nothing now appears 

 above ground which can satisfy such an inquiry. The story of the Phenician 

 vessel mentioned by Strabo to have purposely run ashore, and risqued the men 

 as well as lost the ship, rather than discover to the Romans the trade to these 

 isles, is well known, and proves beyond all doubt the commerce to have been 

 very advantageous. That the natives had mines, and worked them, appears from 

 Diodorus Siculus, lib. 5, ch. 2, and from Strabo, Geog. lib. 3, who informs us, 

 that Publius Crassus sailing thither, and observing how they worked their mines, 

 which were not very deep, and that the people loved peace, and at their leisure 

 navigation, instructed them how to carry on this trade to better advantage: that 

 is, seeing their mines but shallow, yet well worth working deeper, taught them 

 how to pursue the metal to a greater depth. The question then is, what is be- 

 come of these mines ? and how shall this question be answered, but by con- 

 fessing that the land, in which these mines were, is now sunk, and buried under 

 the sea? 



Tradition seems to confirm this ; there being a strong persuasion in the western 

 parts of Cornwall, that formerly there existed a large country between the Land's- 

 end and Scilly, now laid many fathoms under water. The particular arguments 

 by which they support this traditon, may be seen in Mr. Carew's Survey of Corn- 

 wall, p. 3, and in the last edition of Camden, p. 1 1 . 



But though there are no evidences, to be depended on, of any ancient con- 

 nection of the Land's-end and Scilly, yet that the cause of that inundation, 

 which destroyed much of these islands, might reach also to the Cornish shores, 

 is extremely probable ; there being several evidences of a like subsidence of the 

 land in Mount's-bay. The principal anchoring place, called a lake, is now a 



