marks of having been in a state of vigorous cultivation, and extremely populous in ancient periods; five only are inhabited; the moft confiderable at prefent of which is St. Mary's, being about nine miles in circumference, and containing about 700 inha bitants. The next in fize is Trefcaw; and, from the ruins of an abbey and other buildings upon it, appears formerly to have been well-peopled, though at present scarcely forty families are to be found in its whole extent, This island is remarkable for being the only one which retains any veftiges of a tin mine. The light-house is erected on St. Agnes, one of the smallest islands of this cluster, and is a ftructure equally noble and useful in a fea of very difficult and dangerous navigation. Prefumptive evidence and obfcure tradition incline the naturalift, who takes a view of the abrupt appearance and totally altered state. of thefe islands, from what they are hiftorically defcribed to have been, to believe that fome dreadful convulfion of nature has taken place in this region; and that the greater part of them have been fhattered by fome earthquake, or fubmerged by fome tremendous, irruption of the furrounding ocean. They are no longer celebrated for lead and tin; no no longer do they allure the avaricious merchant; and the Afiatic mariner no longer bears to their fpacious harbours the jewels. and spices of the fragrant Eaft; but they remain and long will continue to remain an awful monument of the viciffitudes of nature and the wreck of time. The principal foundation for a belief in this change rests upon a paffage in Diodorus Siculus, which I fhall prefently infert at length, and which feems to prove that a part of these islands was once fituated fo clofely adjoining to the continent, that, when the tide was low, a paffage over into the island might be eafily effected at the recefs of the waters, and that the miners actually conveyed the tin over in carts to Ictis, one of thofe iflands, where it was bought by the merchants, and exported thence into Gaul. At prefent, however, the nearest of the Scilly islands is diftant from the continent at least nine leagues, and either Diodorus must have been grossly mifinformed, or the intermediate land must have been swallowed up in the deep; a circumftance which I have obferved deferves fome credit from traditions current in that part of Cornwall.* Borlafe's Natural History of Cornwall, p. 177. Mr. Carew, Mr. Carew, in his Survey of Cornwall, a book written nearly two centuries ago, and the obfolete language of which has not en tirely obscured the elegance and spirit with which it is penned, has in the following paffage, which I have copied verbatim, recorded the sentiments of his countrymen on this subject, and at the fame time eftablishes the truth of the actual recefs of the fea. "The fea gradually encroaching on the fhore hath ravined from Cornwall the whole tract of countrie called LION NESSE, together with divers other parcels of no little circuite; and that fuch a countrie of Lionneffe there was, thefe proofes are yet remaining. The fpace between the Land's End and the Ifles of Scilley, being about thirtie miles, to this day retaineth that name, in Cornifh Lethowfow, and carrieth continually an equal depth of forty or fixty fathom, (a thing not usual in the fea's proper dominion,) faue that about the midway, there lieth a rocke, which at low water discovereth its head. They term it the Gulphe, fuiting thereby the other name of Scilla. Fishermen alfo cafting their hookes thereabouts have drawn up pieces of doores and windowes. Moreover the ancient name of Saint Michael's Mount was Caraçloafe in Cowfe, VOL. VI. R 1 Cowfe, in English the hoare rocke in the wood, which now is at every flood incompaffed by the fea, and yet at some low ebbes roots of mightie trees are difcryed in the fands about it. The like overflowing has taken place in Plymouth-Haven, and divers other places.** Situated nearly oppofite to the coaft of Galicia, in Spain, the voyage from Gades to the Caffiterides might be accomplished by the Phoenicians in no great length of time; and, under the guidance of Spanish mariners, who were doubtlefs not unacquainted with the navigation of that part of the Atlantic, at no very imminent hazard. What the particular articles of commerce which they brought with them to Britain, and what they carried back in exchange, at that early period, were, we have the good fortune to have express information from fo authentic an author as Strabo. "The Phoenicians," fays that writer," imported from Gades into Britain falt, pottery, and utenfils of brass; they exported from Britain tin, lead, and the fkins of beafts." It is remarkable, that Pliny, in the very fame chapter in which he relates that fuch a quan * Carew's Survey of Cornwall, p. 7. tity of lead was found in Britain, that it became neceffary to enact a particular law, to prevent its being dug up in fuch an abundance as might tend to depreciate its value, acquaints us, India neque as neque plumbum habet; gemmifque fuis ac margaritis hæc permutat: India itself has no mines of copper or lead; but is content to barter for these commodities her precious gems and pearls.* By this means we are immediately enabled to discover what was at least one of the principal articles which the Indians derived from Britain, and of what nation were the merchants who trafficked in it to that diftant coaft; even those who fo affiduously explored it in the fartheft regions of the weft. The articles used in exchange between the two nations deferve fome confideration. On the one fide were given falt, pottery, and brass; on the other, tin, lead, and skins. By the first article it appears that the art of procuring falt from the waters of the ocean, or the practice of digging in their own abundant mines for rock-falt, was not then known in Britain: yet to a race living on an island, of which the furrounding fea and the numerous Plinii Nat. Hift. lib. xxxv, cap. 17. rivers |