SECT. I. 
Tin, where 
found. 
SECT. II. 
Several Hates 
in which tin 
is found. 
SECT. III. 
In the floor. 
!6o NATURAL HISTORY 
peculiar and moft valuable property of this county, creating at home 
employment and fubfiftence to the poor, affluence to the lords of 
the foil, a confiderable annual revenue to our Prince the Duke of 
Cornwall, and demanded with great eagernefs by all the foreign 
markets of the known world. 
How anciently tin has been railed in Cornwall cannot be pre- 
cifely determined, but this county and Scilly ifles (nine leagues dis- 
tant from it to the weft) were traded to for tin by the Phoenician 
colonies of Spain feveral hundred years before Chrift. The Grecians 
and Romans, as foon as they applied themfelves to marine expedi- 
tions, ftudioufly inftnuated themfelves into the fame traffick. Some 
tin was formerly found in Gallicia and Lufttania, but this feems to 
have been little in quantity, in an arenaceous ftate, with a few 
fhodes intermixed f . 
To Cornwall therefore the commerce for tin principally tended, and 
here folely continued till about the middle of the thirteenth century 
after Chrift, when a tinner of this county, being difobliged by Richard 
Earl of Cornwall King of the Romans, went into Germany, found 
the fame metal, and taught the Saxons how to diftinguifh, fearch 
for, and drefs their tin ; and in Saxony, and fome other places, 
there are at prefent fuch workings as fupply fome of thole inland 
parts ; but the quantity is fmall, and the expence of railing, and 
carrying it by land, is great. On the coaft of Malabar, in the Eaft 
Indies, fome tin has been difcovered of late years, and brought into 
Europe. Alonzo Barba 8 tells us, that, in the Spanifh Weft Indies, 
tin is difcovered in feveral places, but the working of it neglected, 
becaufe of the neighbourhood of richer metals ; but the tin of 
Cornwall is fuperiour in quantity and quality, and facility of expor- 
tation, to that of all the reft of the world \ 
Tin is found either collected and fixed, or loofe and detached. 
In the firft cafe, it is either accumulated in a lode, or in a floor, or 
interfperfed in grains and bunches in the natural rock ; in the fecond 
and more difperfed ftate, it is found either in Angle feparate ftones, 
called Shodes, or in a continued courfe of fuch ftones, called the 
Beuheyl ; or, laftly, in an arenaceous pulverized ftate. Of which 
in their order. 
The fiflure and the lode have been already explained (chap 5 , xiii and 
xiv.) The floor is a horizontal layer of ore. Mr. Hutchinfon, fent 
into Cornwall by Mr. Auditor Harley and Dr. Woodward in fearch of 
f Pliny, lib. xxxiv. chap. xvi. h Woodward’s Method of Foffils, page 52. 
s Englifh tranflation, page 9 r, 92. Cat. vol. I. page 5. 
foffils 
