forests, which history afferts was the cafe with thofe of the great Pyrenean range which dif folved the metals then lying nearer the surface of the earth, or fires kindled on the fhore by fhipwrecked mariners for the fake of warming themselves, or dreffing their provisions, which might easily have happened on the Cornish fhore, where the tin-ore, according to Dr. Borlafe,* is frequently wafhed down from the high hills, whofe fummits, or fides, have been bared by the violence of tempests and mountain torrents, or broken by fhocks of thunder. It was not only gold and filver for the production of which the mountains of Spain were anciently famous; they had, also, rich veins of copper, which according to Sir H. Mackworth, on the fubject of Mines, p. 151, always grows in the fame places with gold and filver, and greatly participates of the nature of thofe metals. This too must have proved a valuable difcovery to the other Phoe nician merchants, fince we know, from Homer and other Greek writers, that the ancients took great delight in having their domeftic utenfils, arms, and accoutrements, of Natural History of Cornwall, p. 164. brafs, brafs, which is only a factitious metal, formed by a mixture of the lapis calaminaris with copper in fufion; and this process must have been known to mankind before the flood, or Tubal-Cain could never have been the inftructor of every artificer in BRASS and iron. Add to this that copper and brass in the more ancient periods of the world were the univerfal medium by which commerce was carried on, at least in the western regions of the globe. A piece of brafs ftamped with the figure of an ox, whence Pliny derives the word pecunia, was the only money known in Rome, during the early ages of that republic. It was called an Afs; fuppofed to be derived from Es, brafs; and hence the public treafury was called ærarium. It was not, according to the fame writer, till the year of Rome 484, that filver money began to be coined in that capital; and their firft gold coinage did not take place till the year of that city 546,、 above fixty years after. The current coin, allo, of our rude British ancestors, notwithstanding they were not actually without gold and filver before Cæfar's invafion, confifted either of coined brafs, or annulis ferries, iron rings, whofe value was according to their weight; and, fince Cæfar affirms, are uțuntur importato, importato," the, Britons use brass imported *the, by foreigners;" it is more than probable that the Phoenicians, retaining the Spanish bullion for the Indian ports, gave the Britons brafs in exchange for the tin of the Caffiterides. But of this fubject we fhall discourse more at large presently: let us return to their fettlement of Gades. If Pliny may be credited, that divifion of Spain called Lufitania, now Portugal, befides the gold which was rolled down with the fands of its celebrated Tagus, of which most pure metal the fovereigns of that country are said at this day to poffefs a fceptre, abounded in mines of lead, whence the inhabitants of Meidabriga, one of its cities near the lead mines, now Armenha, are by him denominated Plumbarii, and alfo produced a fmall quantity of tin, of an inferior fort, and found generally in an arenaceous ftate. After all, though this account is far from being improbable, no very great ftrefs is to be laid upon the information, as the ancients did not make that nice difcrimination in regard to these metals which the more minute investigations of the moderns in mineralogical fcience enabled them to make; * Cæfaris Comment. lib v. p. 92. for, for, according éven to Pliny, in the very chapter cited, they confidered lead and tin as only two different ftages of one and the fame metal. Tin was called plumbum album, and efteemed the pureft; and the metal which we call lead was their plumbum nigrum. This fmall quantity of tin, if indeed it were tin, to be met with in Lufitania, probably urged the Phoenician fettlers of Gades and Tarteffus widely to explore the western world for increased stores of fo useful yet fo rare a metal; and launching more widely into the wide ocean, and holding a courfe ftill more wefterly, they in time discovered the Caffiterides, by which are now univerfally understood the Scilly iflands. Thefe celebrated islands in the annals of commerce derive their name from κασσιτερον, a Greek word fignifying TIN, and which is the exact tranflation of the Phoenician Bratanac, or the land of tin, whence BPETavisen and Britain. This was their foreign appellation, given them, as may be fuppofed, by merchants folicitous to diftinguifh the place by a name, expreffive of its principal production. The original British appellation of these islands is faid to be SYLLEH, or rocks facred to the Sun; a circumstance by no means improbable, improbable, when we confider the monu ments of the folar fuperftition yet remaining among them, of which fome have been de fcribed in the preceding fections, and many more probably yet remain unexplored. Wherever the Heraclidæ and the Belida came, they left ftriking memorials of that firft and favourite fuperftition of mankind. They were alfo called by the ancients the HESPERIDES, or Weftern Iflands; but by whatever name they were diftinguished, the western extremity of Cornwall, which is narrow and prominent to the eye that anciently furveyed it from the Caffiterides, might ap pear of an infular form, must be included in that name, for there lay the grand store-house of the commodity, in queft of which they had travelled, by a tedious and dangerous naviga tion, from Tyre, in the 34th to a country in the 50th degree of north latitude. They faw, with delight, the dark grains of this valued metal fcattered plentifully over the thores of the new difcovered region, and from its flimy appearance denominated it , mud; whence was formed its Cornifh name of Stean, and the Latin word ftannum. The Scilly iflands are very numerous, but ten are of principal note, and exhibit the marks |