372 
we must not forget was the territory of the new Belgian 
settlers, who no doubt carried on the iron mining. I think 
it no less certain that by the interior of the island Caesar 
meant Cornwall, whence the tin was brought overland to the 
part of the island visited by the great Roman. The opera- 
tions of mining for metals, I need hardly say, are processes 
which leave very apparent traces behind them, and if the 
Britons of the interior, those who preceded the maritime 
settlers, had been miners, we should hardly have failed to 
find some traces of their labours. ~Now I think I may venture 
to say that I have explored the remains of early mining in the 
interior of our island to a greater extent than any of our 
antiquaries, and it is my entire conviction that they 
were all commenced by the Romans themselves ; that the 
Britons of the interior of the island, that is, in the great 
metallic districts, were not acquainted with the riches con- 
cealed in their hills and under the soil ; and that Caesar's 
statement is strictly true that when he wrote the iron of the 
weald and the tin of Cornwall were the only metals obtained 
from Britain. Lead was the first metal which the Romans 
procured in any quantity from Britain, and is first mentioned 
by Strabo as brought thence ; and I judge, from a very 
careful survey of the great Roman lead-mines, that their whole 
plan shows that the Romans began them from the surface, 
and that when they first came to them they found the veins 
cropping out on the tops and sides of the hills, and previously 
untouched. So far from copper having been obtained before 
the arrival of the Romans, I believe from appearances that 
they were not acquainted with its existence here when they 
first came, but that they discovered it in their search for lead, 
the two metals occurring in the same localities, and that they 
never drew from Britain a very large supply. I believe, too, 
that we owe to the Romans the discovery of the rich iron- 
fields of the interior, such as that of the forest of Dean. 
