THE 
EDINBURGH NEW 
PHILOSOPHICAL JOURNAL. 
St Michael’s Mount and the Phenicians.* By R. Epmonps, 
Esq. 
To the astonishment of Cornishmen, especially of those 
best acquainted with the subject, it was at the Truro 
meeting of the Cambrian Archeological Association in 
August last, gravely questioned whether the Phcenicians 
ever visited Cornwall. Itis true that some authors have 
lately contended that the tin in Canaan in the days of 
Moses (Num. xxxi. 22) must have come from India. But 
they have done so without a tittle of evidence; there being 
no more reason for supposing India to have supplied Canaan 
or Egypt with tin 3000 years ago, because tin is now so 
largely exported from the Isle of Banca, than for imagining 
Cornwall to have then exported copper as well as tin be- 
cause it does so now. Other authors have contended that 
the tin then in Canaan came from Tartessus, near Cadiz, the 
Tarshish of Scripture (Jon. 1. 3; Isa. xxiii. 6; Ezek. xxvii. 12). 
But if Tartessus, or any other part of Spain, had in ancient 
times produced much tin, it would in all probability, like 
Cornwall, have continued to do so to the present day. No 
tin mines, however, appear to have ever existed in Spain, 
as Dr George Smith was lately informed by the College of 
* Read (with the exception of the postscript) at the Annual Meeting of the 
Royal Institution of Cornwall on the 29th of May 1863. Communicated by 
the author. 
NEW SERIES.—VOL. XVIII. NO. 11.—OCTOBER 1863. Z 
