36 On the Phmnician Tin Trade in Cornwall, by R. Edmonds. 
hre being the Cornish for *' mount." Thus in all probability 
the two very ancient names of the Mount were Ildin and Brelin* 
By the former of these names the Mount was not so exclusively 
distinguished as by the latter, for there were doubtless other 
Jhtins ("tin-ports") along the coasts of Cornwall and Devon, 
at which the Mediterranean ships must have touched in their 
voyage to the Mount. Amongst these may have been the ports 
at the mouths of the river Fal, and of the streams of Pentuan 
and Par valleys, and at the mouths also of the rivers which 
descend from the rich and very anciently mined tin-district of 
Dartmoor. Therefore Iktin, "the Tin-Port," could not have 
been so distinctive of the Mount as Bretin, "the Tin-Mount," 
for there was but one Tin Mount. 
This Mount, which has given its modern name to Mounts- ^ 
bay, may have given its ancient name, Bretin, to the whole 
of our island ; not only because it was the most striking 
object, and the most important place in this country known to 
the Phoenicians, but also because this ancient name — which we 
pronounce Britain, and which the French pronounce Bretagne 
or Bretain {tain being the French for tin) — was as uncommuni- 
* It is not uncommon for places and things to have each more descriptive names 
than one. The island we live in is called Albion as weU as Britain, from its ivhite 
cliffs. And tin is known by two other names, phmhtim album, "white lead," from 
its great resemblance to lead, except in colour; and KctacriTtgoi from xa^cu, "to adorn 
or garnish," as if tin were in ancient as well as in modern^times commonly used 
not only as an alloy, but also for coating bronze or iron, for the sake of ornament or 
to make them bright and white like silver. This use of tin for imparting an 
external and deceptive appearance like silver may have been the origin of its 
figurative meaning as an emblem of hypocrisy (Is. i., 22, 25), like whited walls 
(Acts xxiii., 3), or garnished sepulchres (Mat. xxiii., 28, 29). 
Thin plates of iron coated with tin are often called tin, as if they consisted wholly 
of tin. And the name latten, by which they used to be called in this country and are 
still called in Plymouth and its neighbourhood, is evidently the anglicized French word 
for tin, with the article prefixed — Vetain. In the westJof^jCornwall, hoAvever, this 
name (latten), \i ever used, is now quite obsolete, and tin-plate is there commonly 
called lattis ; but why I cannot conjecture, unless it be a corruption of the Italian 
word lalla, which itself, like latten, may be a corruption of the French Vetain. The 
addition of tlie ordinary English plural letter to latta, " tin-plate," would make it 
lottos, " tin-plates," Avhich phonetically is not far from lattis. 
