Feb. 1, 1865.] THE TECHNOLOGIST. 



TIN AND ITS USES. 327 



ancient histories and in classic song. The Scilly Islands have frequently 

 been considered as the Tin Islands of the ancients, although there is not 

 the slightest evidence that tin was ever found in any quantity on them. 

 Certainly, no tin is found at the present time in any of this interesting 

 group of English islands. There can be but little doubt that the term 

 "Cassiterides" was applied to the western promontory of this island ; and 

 if we look at Western Cornwall from the British Ocean, it assumes the 

 appearance of a collected group of islands. Indeed, an alteration of a 

 few feet in the levels of the land and oeean would at once give an in- 

 sular character to that portion of Cornwall which lies westward of the 

 line extending from Marazion on the south, to Hayle on the northern 

 sides of the county. 



Regarding, after the most careful examination of all the evidences 

 which have been brought into the discussion, St. Michael's Mount as the 

 Ictis of Diodorus, I am disposed to believe that the tin districts west- 

 ward of Helstone, and those around St. Austle, supplied the ancient world 

 with the largest quantities of tin, which they knew so well how to use, 

 although I cannot but think it probable that some may have been de- 

 rived from the Islands of the Indian Archipelago. Tin mining, in the 

 strict sense of the term, was unknown before the time of the Romans. 

 The Britons, or rather that tribe of them grouped under the general 

 epithet of the Damnonii, who maintained themselves so long as a sepa- 

 rate family to the west of Exeter, obtained the tin they user' or sold 

 by washing the drift deposits of the valleys; and from the evidences 

 which have from time to time been discovered, the process of washing 

 adopted by our ancestors was similar to that which may now be observed 

 with the modern tin streamer of Cornwall, or the gold washer of Aus- 

 tralia. 



There are many evidences that the Romans made great excavations in 

 search of tin : but subsequently the tin trade of Cornwall passed into 

 the hands of the Jews, and the remains of Jews' workings — Jews 

 houses, &c, as they are called, sufficiently prove the extent of their 

 search. They appear to have confined themselves to washing processes," 

 or merely to have followed the veins appearing on the exposed faces of 

 the rocks. We have no means of ascertaining the quantities of tin 

 raised by the Jews, but it was less than half the quantity wdiich has been 

 produced in Cornwall during thelast century. In the search for stream tin, 

 it is curious to observe the circumscribed limits by which the streamer 

 has been bound, the districts of St. Just, of Helstone, and St. Austle 

 being the most marked. Tin mining has been for some time carried on 

 to a great extent, and it is extending. 



The total quantity of tin ore raised in Cornwall and Devonshire in 

 1853 was 8,866 tons, the average value of which was about 68?. per ton. 

 In 1861 it was 11,640 tons, valued at 725,560?. Metallic or white tin 

 produced from the above 7,016 tons. The black tin, or tin ore, pro- 

 duces on the average 65 per cent, of metallic, or white tin, as it is 

 vol. v. oo 



