ON THE TRACK OF THE <c OLD MEN." 
95 
ON THE TEACK OF THE " OLD MEN," 
DAETMOOE. 
BY ROBERT BURNARD. 
(Read 22nd March, 1888.) 
A casual observer on Dartmoor cannot fail to notice the disturbed 
state of the surfaces of the valleys ; for mile after mile the evidence 
of tin-streaming operations, consisting of mounds and old surface 
mining excavations, is plainly visible. A more careful examination 
discloses the remains of rude smelting huts, or blowing houses, 
containing stones with curious circular cavities, and ingot moulds 
hewn out of granite blocks, together with remains of furnaces, 
ancient watercourses, and wheel pits. Ask the moor men who 
made these things, and they will tell you that they are the " old 
men's workings," of a time so long since that none of them can 
give any clue as to the period when such remarkable evidence of 
centuries of work was accumulated. 
It is popularly supposed that the Cassiterides included not only 
the Scilly Islands, but all the tin-producing portions of Devon 
and Cornwall ; and local writers, from Eisdon downward, assert 
that the Phoenicians traded here for tin at a very early period. 
The principal authorities quoted in support of this statement are 
Strabo, the Greek geographer, Diodorus Siculus, and Velleius 
Paterculus, historians, who are all supposed to have flourished 
about two thousand years since. The story of the discovery of 
tin in this country is given as follows : The Phoenicians are 
stated to have had very early possession of tin mines in the 
south of Spain, near the Straits of Gibraltar, and also in what 
now constitutes the kingdom of Portugal. The colony of Gades 
— the modern Cadiz — is said to have been settled by them about 
600 B.C. Extending around the coasts, the Phoenicians, on the 
exhaustion of the Spanish mines, discovered the metallic riches 
