THE DAWN OF METALLURGY. 285 
‘almost unexplored, from which some, if not all, the tin of the 
earliest epoch may have been obtained, and that is the Altai 
range. M. Pavet de Courteille says that in the Turkish 
language tin is called calai, a word which has no representa- 
tive in any other ancient language, and he argues that the 
Turks must, therefore, have been acquainted with tin in the 
first home of their race, since they did not borrow its name 
from any other people. Now, according to their traditions, 
the Turks had the cradle of their race in the neighbourhood 
of the Altai mountains, a range which is known to be ex- 
tremely rich in metallic ores. A singular fact is also noted,— 
viz., that in India the modern word for tin, “ Kulu,” seems 
to have been derived from the Turkish “Calai.’ The fact 
that the early navigators went to the head waters of the 
Black Sea to get their tin, and which probably led to the 
idea that it was obtained from the Caucasus, is readily ex- 
plained by the hypothesis that it was brought from the interior 
of Asia. In old Chinese documents tin is stated to have been 
brought from the north-west of China; and Chinese bronzes 
are known to which at least a date of 2000 B.C. can be 
assigned. 
We are thus brought to the following conclusions that the 
first tin discovered in antiquity was probably either in the 
Altai or the Hindoo Kush. But we have now to ask whether 
it is necessary for us to suppose that the tin used in the 
European bronze manufacture was brought from such distant 
regions: may it not have been found nearer home? In order 
to meet this question, we must see what possible European 
sources existed whence this metal may have been obtained. 
It‘is well known that the Phoenicians were in Spain as early as 
1100 B.C., and they may have entered it at a still earlier date, 
and it is a well-known fact also, that this people derived, at 
any rate at one period of their history, a large amount of tin 
from the Cassiterides, or the tin-producing district of Corn- 
wall, which they are said to have discovered. It is certain 
that in early times this was one of the great sources of tin 
known to the ancient European peoples. But it is equally clear 
that this was not the only source: Spain itself has its tin mines, 
which were worked by the Phcenicians and the Carthaginians, 
and there are other European localities in which tin was 
worked at an early date. MM. Mallard and Simonin have 
discovered traces of tin workings in France in the districts of 
Limousin and La Marche, also in Brittany, near Ploérmel, as 
well as near the mouths of the Vilaine and the Loire. Why, 
then, should not the bronze-workers of ancient Hurope have 
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