174 On St Michael’s Mount and the Phenicians. 
Mines in Madrid in answer to his inquiries. ‘I cannot 
learn,” says the writer from Madrid, “ that Spain ever pro- 
duced any quantity of this metal. The Government do not 
work any mines of tin. The quantity being produced at 
present is very small, chiefly by streamers, near the granite 
hills in Gallicia and Zamora. I cannot learn that there is 
any tin-mining in the country.” This quotation is from a 
note prefixed to an excellent little work on the Cassiterides, 
published this year by Dr Smith, wherein he shows, by the 
most satisfactory historical and other evidence, that the 
Phoenicians never procured their tin from India, but always 
from Cornwall, with the exception perhaps of a small 
portion from Tartessus. 
In addition to what has been stated by this learned author, 
I would mention a few more things worthy of being recorded. 
That Mountsbay was known to Greek historians before 
the time of Herodotus, and as far back at least as the 6th 
century B.c., is shown by the following quotation from 
Diodorus, who was evidently not aware that the locality 
described by Hecatzus and the other historians was the 
very Belerion which he himself has described, where the 
tin was dug out of the earth, and near which was the island 
Iktin. To those, however, who are familiar with Mounts- 
bay, this identity is very apparent. ‘‘ Amongst them that 
have written old stories much like fables, Hecatzeus and 
some others say that there is an island in the ocean, over 
against Gaul (as big as Sicily), under the arctic pole, where 
the Hyperboreans inhabit, so called because they lie beyond 
the breezes of the north wind. That the soil there is very 
rich and very fruitful, and the climate temperate, inasmuch 
as there are two crops in the year.” The island here re- 
ferred to can be no other than Britain; but the only part 
of Britain to which the description apples is Mountsbay, 
where still ‘‘ there are two crops in the year.” Whether 
the other writers alluded to by Diodorus lived before or 
after Hecateeus, we are not informed; but as Hecatzus was 
born 549 B.c., we may conclude that the fact recorded was 
known in Grecian history as far back at least as the sixth 
century B.c.: and from whom is it so likely to have been 
first related as by the Phoenician mariners, who were 
