16 
ON TIN. 
[Nature and Art, January 1, 1867. 
returning to 1 1 is own country, rewarded by having 
the whole of his loss made up to him from the 
public treasury. 
The rases to which the tin obtained from the 
natives by the Phoenicians was applied were ex- 
ceedingly numerous, as not only were nearly all 
the tools, cutting instruments, and weapons of war 
made of bronze (an alloy of copper and tin), but 
the fetters of prisoners and the mirrors of the 
ladies were ol this material. Mention of these 
latter articles is made in the twenty-eighth chapter 
of Exodus, eighth verse — And he made the laver 
of brass, and the foot of it of brass, and the look- 
ing-glasses of the women.” These looking-glasses, 
or mirrors, were in common use amongst the early 
Egyptians, who usually carried them in their left 
hands to the temples when attending worship. On 
the Jewish people quitting Egypt, it is probable 
that they carried these mirrors, together with their 
little ornaments and musical instruments, with 
them — 
’Mid the strings of the harps 
They hung on the trees, 
The sad wind whistled wearily. 
From very early ages the Phoenicians were 
famed for their skill in the art of dyeing, and 
there appears some doubt as to whether the crimson 
or scarlet colour spoken of as the Tyrian purple 
and held in such high estimation by the ancients, 
was 'not produced by the use of a solution of tin, 
rather than from a shell-bearing mollusc, much as 
modern dyers use it to obtain those colours per- 
manently in stuffs and woollen cloths. 
There are several islands on the Cornish coast, 
from which the tin might have been shipped off 
as described. St. Clement’s Isle off Mousehole, 
St. Michael’s Mount, and Love Island were all well 
adapted for the reception of the mineral, or the 
ingots produced by smelting it ; but the weight of 
evidence is in favour of St. Michael’s Mount being 
the principal port of shipment, and the Ictus, 
referred to by early historians. Mr. Edwards, 
who has devoted much attention to the question, 
maintains, with much apparent reason, that, by an 
error in the translation of Diodorus, the name has 
been changed, and that Ilctin — the ancient Cornish 
for Tin Port — is the true rendering. Be this as it 
may, there can be no question that many of the 
statements made by Diodorus have been fully sub- 
stantiated by discoveries and investigations. The 
massive block of tin dredged rrp near St. Mawes, 
at the entrance of Falmouth harbour, is of such a 
remarkable form, and corresponds so exactly with 
the description given by him of that exported by 
the Phoenicians, that we give a translation of his 
account. 
“ The inhabitants of the Promontory of Belerium 
[the most western part of Cornwall] cast the tin 
into the form of astragali.” This astragalus form 
is best understood by calling to mind the shape of 
a common knuckle-bone, or the cross section of the 
truck wheel or sheave of a block, which represents 
the ingot. An exact model has been deposited in 
the Loyal College of Mines, in Jenny n Street. Its 
weight is 65 lb. ; length, 2 feet 11 inches ; width, 
11 inches; and thickness, 3 inches. The up] >er 
surface is perfectly flat, and the under side of a 
slightly rounded or boat form, forked at each end. 
This would admit of their being conveniently 
placed on the bottoms of the boats or coi’acles used 
for their transport. The four handle-like projec- 
tions would serve to carry them by, just as a hand- 
barrow is borne. These would also form most 
convenient points of attachment for the lashings of 
the pack-saddles, on which (in pairs) they were 
carried by mules or horses the thirty days’ overland 
journey from the coast of France nearest to Britain 
to the mouth of the Rhone, where they were 
again shipped and conveyed to Gades or Cadiz, 
the great emporium of the tin trade in those days. 
Thus writes Diodorus, just before the Christian 
era, B.c. 8 : — “ The Phoenicians in ancient times 
undertook frequent voyages by sea in the way of 
traffic, as merchants, so that they planted many 
colonies, both in Africa and in the western parts of 
Europe. These merchants, succeeding in their 
undertakings, and therefore growing very rich, 
passed at length beyond the Pillars of Hercules into 
the sea, called the Ocean ; and first they built a city 
called Gades , near to the Pillars of Hercules, at the 
sea-side, on an Isthmus in Europe.”' In Ezekiel, 
xxvii. 12, the early trade in tin and other metals 
is thus mentioned : — “ Tarshish was thy merchant 
by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches ; 
with silver, iron, tin, and lead, they traded in thy 
fairs.” 
Homer informs us that Cinyras, king of Cyprus, 
presented a corslet to Agamemnon, which he wore 
on his departure for the Trojan war. “Next he 
placed around his breast a corslet which Cinyras 
once gave him to be a pledge of hospitality, for a 
great rumour was heard at Cyprus that the Greeks 
were about to sail to Troy in ships, wherefore he 
gave him this, gratifying the king. Ten bars indeed 
[of the corslet] were of dark cyanus, w twelve of 
gold, and twenty of tin, and three serpents of 
cyanus stretched towards the neck on each side, 
like unto rainbows.” On the tin deposits of Britain 
becoming known to the Romans, there is little 
doubt that they at once availed themselves of the 
discovery, and employed the natives to mine for 
them ; a medal of the reign of Domitian, together 
with implements, &c., of the early Roman period, 
found in an ancient tin mine, being strong evidences 
of Roman supervision. Improved and more exten- 
sive operations appear to have been conducted under 
Roman rule, and large quantities of tin were for a 
very long period obtained for the purpose of alloy- 
ing with copper to form the bronze for which they 
were so celebrated. Kenrick, in speaking of it, 
says, — “ This bronze, which is one of the oldest 
alloys of copper we are acquainted with, contains 
about ten or twelve per cent, of tin.” It has been 
found by analysis that this is just the composition 
of the bronze instruments found in the sepulchral 
barrows of Europe, of the nails which fastened 
* Lead. 
