J 84 - NATURAL HISTORY 
pafture, or fifhery, tin muft needs appear to be a great blefling 
to this county ; but indeed that part of it where the mines chance 
to be at prefent, viz. from St. Auftel weif wards, feels this advantage 
molt fenfibly, lands bringing a higher rent, the number of people 
being greater, and the markets much better flocked with buyers, 
than the eaftern parts of the county where there are no mines. 
sect. The ufes of tin are many : the ancients ufed it to make their 
XI *' . mirrours, which ferved all the purpofes of looking-glafles ; but to 
ufes thi§ con f um ption luxury put a flop (fays Pliny) by introducing of 
fllver : in other particulars their ufes of this metal were much the 
fame as thofe of the prefent age, though not fo many. Tin is ufed 
in tinning brafs and copper furniture of the kitchen, in fodering 
pipe and fheet-lead, in making of lattin, bell-metal, hard-wares, 
in lining of looking-glafles, in furgery, medicine, and painting, but 
above all in making pewter, which in iome meafure is ufed in all 
civilized nations, by every degree, from the pooreft day-labourers 
to the prince upon the throne, there being hardly a houfe in Europe, 
or any part of the world where commerce reaches, but has tome 
pewter : in all thefe particulars the confumption is as general as the 
ufe, and frefti demands and frefh fupplies are perpetually quicken- 
ing and urging on one another. 
sect. xx. Tin is the lighted: of all metals, being reckoned nearly to water as 
Tin in gc- j^2i to iooo'; the fofteft of all metals, (lead only excepted) and 
gine, con- the leaft fixed in fire ; it eafily mixes with other metals, but imparts 
(hape^and a brittlenefs to all ; aqua regia is its proper natural menftruum. 
richnefs. Tin in its natural ftate and hardeft bed muft, I fhould think, be 
Coseval to reckoned coeval with the creation ; for it is found in bunches and 
the creation. pp Qts - m g ran it e , and the much harder ftone of the Elvan kind, 
ftones which can give no fufpicion of their having ever been diflolved 
and reformed fince the firft induration of folids ; in laxer nidus’s the par- 
ticles of tin may have fluctuated and changed fituations. It has been 
imagined that tin fettled in fuch bunches by the percolation of 
waters charged with tin, but thefe bunches are frequently found in 
feparate blocks of ftone, open to day, and fubject to no moifture 
but that of the heavens, and confequently to no percolation. Again : 
In percolation, either the texture of thefe ftones would in a great 
meafure refill the paflage of the tin, or would freely permit it ; in 
the firft cafe, we fhould find the tin condenfed near the furface ; 
in the latter, find it funk and collected near the bottom ; but it 
is difperfed without any regard to either. 
r But in the computation allowance fhould be made for the different purity of the weighed 
fpecimen. 
Tin 
