1 



in Brigantia and other pails of Britain. 99 



Wales, who made their own iron, and were by the laws of that 

 country, as renewed by Howell Dda, allowed to sit next the sa- 

 cred priest. 



. Why Pliny treats as a fable the story of the Cassiterides yield- 

 ing tin, is somewhat difficult to say. He classes the Cassiterides 

 with Hispania, book iv. cap. xxii. (ex ad verso sunt insula*, — Cas- 

 siterides dictae Grascis, a fertilitate plumbi.) and speaks of Mictis 

 (on the authority of Timaeus the historian) as six days' sail from 

 Britain, and as yielding candidum plumbum, iv. cap. 16. If the 

 Cassiterides are the Ocrynian Promontory and the Scilly Isles, 

 from which, as recorded by Strabo, the Phoenicians drew their tin, 

 Clung of Diodorus, MIxtiq of Timaeus, and Ofyxru- of Ptolemy 

 being Vectis or Wight, from which the tin was carried through 

 France to Marseilles,) we may suppose that in the early period 

 the only route for the tin of Cornwall to the Mediterranean was 

 by sea to the western parts of Spain ; but that in the latter period 

 the track by land through Gaul to Massilia was preferred, and the 

 old trade had become a tradition which Pliny chose not to adopt 

 from Strabo. who is never quoted on this subject by the author 

 of the Historia Naturalis, but may be obliquely and slightingly 

 alluded to. Whether tin occurs at all in any part of the Spanish 

 Peninsula can hardly be doubtful after the assertion of Pliny. 

 He had been procurator in Spain, and by his intimacy with Ves- 

 pasian* must be supposed in position to learn much of Britain, 

 from the despatches of Pe til his Cereal is, Ostorius Scapula, and 

 Agricola. But he was suffocated by the fumes of Vesuvius in 



79, one year after the appointment of Agricola to Britain — and 

 for the greater part of his literary life, Britain was a scene of 

 never-ending war and confusion. Besides this, the Cornish prom- 

 ontory appears to have been at no time much occupied by Roman 

 stations, or traversed by roads ; and it may be thought to have 

 had then, as afterwards in Saxon and Norman times, a history 

 and commerce quite distinct from and little known to the Belgic 

 settlers in Albion. He might be mistaken respecting Britain, of 

 which perhaps he could know only Albion ; but his positive as- 

 surance of the occurrence of tin in Spain is confirmed by a pas- 

 sage in Bowles's Natural History of Spain, and, as I hear from 

 Mr. Kenrick, by a later German writer (Hopfensach) ; it occurs 

 W fact, according to one of our best books of mineralogy .f in beds 

 M the mica schist of Gallicia. Oxyd of tin has been found, be- 

 sides, on both sides of the Erzegebirge in granite, at Puy de 

 V] gnes (Haute Vienne), also in granite in Wicklovv, on the east 

 coast of Sumatra, Siam and Pegu, and in Bauca and Malacca. It 

 has been found in Mexico, Chili and Greenland, and mixed with 

 °ther matters in Finland and Sweden. 



? 



Accent imp. a. i>. 69. t W - Philli P s > l m 





