rivers were plentifully stocked with fish of the moft excellent fort, falt, either marine or foffil, for preferving and pickling it, if not for their own use, (fince Cæfar afferts, though with no fhadow of probability, they entirely abstained from eating fifh,) yet for the use of others, and the purpofes of commerce, was indifpenfably neceffary, as well as for feafoning and preferving the flesh of the beafts killed in hunting, and whose skins, we see, formed alfo a material article of barter. The falt imported hither by the Phoenicians was, probably, of the foffil kind, and obtained from the mountains of Catalonia, in Spain, where are ftupendous mines of rock-falt, probably wrought in the remoteft periods by a people naturally led to fubterraneous refearches, by the vaft profit arifing from those which they poffeffed of metal. Such were the principal uses to which our painted ancestors applied the falt brought to them by the Phoenicians, no doubt in very large quantities, as our forefts abounded in game, and our coafts probably then as now fwarmed with overflowing treafures of the choiceft fifh; that game and that fifh, which, preferved from putrefaction by this pungent and powerful ingredient, poffibly made ‘no` small

3

part

part of the cargo which that maritime race carried away with them from this ifland, to support the crews of their veffels during their long voyages to diftant and different regions of the earth. If, however, to them and to their fleet, in that infant ftate of navigation, this grand article of naval confumption wasfo immediately, fo indifpenfably, neceffary, how much more fo, and in what an astonishingly increased proportion muft it be to the modern Phoenicians of the western world: to us, whofe innumerable fleets cover the ocean, and whofe fails are expanded (oh! may they long continue fo!) in every climate and almost every harbour of the now circumnavigated globe. When we confider the immenfe quantity of falted provifions conftantly laid up in magazines at home for the use of the greatest navy that ever the world beheld, and the amazing expenditure of the fame commodity. in fuch as are annually exported to the plantations, how much reafon have we to applaud the patriot spirit, fo fimilar to that displayed in respect to the highly increased exportation of the ancient national staple, TIN, and other articles of British growth and manufacture, by the Court of Directors; that fpirit, I fay, which explored the bofom of our own rich country

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country for the latent treasure, and which has thereby not only prevented the fending abroad fome millions of the national wealth for foreign falt, but by diligently working the great mines of rock-falt discovered in Cheshire and other provinces of Britain, and promoting the vigorous domeftic manufacture of it, has given employment and bread to fo many thousands of the industrious poor. Add to this that other most important confideration, that the national revenue is, in all these cases, proportionably improved, as must be evident to the reader, when he is informed, that the grofs duty on falt annually amounts to nearly a million fterling. Thefe reflections will, I truft, not be confidered as wholly irrevelant to the subject: for I think it my duty, as a friend to my country, to make these statements; that, whatever may be the event of the prefent convulsed order of things in Europe, we may fully know, learn properly to value, and diligently to improve, the ineftimable bleffings beftowed by Providence on these islands.

With respect to the POTTERY afferted by Strabo to have been anciently imported into this country, it will scarcely be doubted, that the Phoenicians of Sidon, who, from the fine

fand

fand and pebbles fcattered over their fhores, finely ground together and mixed with the afhes of burnt vegetables, could manufacture fuch excellent glass, were also able, by a fimilar procefs, from the various fpecies of argillaceous earths which that part of Afia affords, to fabricate porcelain of as various kinds and degrees in fineness; as well the fplendid painted vafe for the palaces of Syria, as the more homely utenfils for the rude Briton, who, now, fpurning the vulgar drinking-horn, quaffed: from them the fermented liquor, extracted from barley and other vegetable productions of his country, which animated him to the battle, with as much ardour as the nobles of: Babylon regaled on the sparkling beverage preffed from the delicious grape of the palm and the cypress. The pottery of Sidon would not fail to be proportionably improved, as, from their proficiency in their grand ftaple manufacture of glafs, they could not want either skill or materials to give their earthenware that fhining vitreous envelope which equally tends to beautify and preferve it. How greatly in this refpect, alfo, is the feene changed!. Sidon and her daughter, Tyre, are no more, and the British manufacture of pottery is not exceeded by any thing of the kind produced

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produced in Europe, while her porcelain, efpecially that manufactured at Chelfea, is making rapid advances to rival even the Oriental. To ftimulate national induftry in this point, it fhould be remembered, that our country contains in itself all the materials neceffary for the carrying these valuable articles of its modern commerce to the utmost point of attainable perfection. Dr. Lifter, in the Philofophical Transactions, has enumerated no less than two-and-twenty different kinds of clay, which he has arranged in order, and exhibited, in the form of a table* of clays, to the notice of that Society; and it is well deferving the attention of the public, fince, in all probability, most of these clays, if proper experiments were made, would be found ferviceable to the potter, and the great use, elegance, and beauty, of our tobacco-pipe clay, are too well known to be here infifted on. If the Chinese, without any confiderable advance in chemical knowledge, or correct idea of enamelling and painting, have been able to furnish Europe with fuch beautiful fpecimens of porcelain, what may not in time be accomplished by a nation fo much their fuperior in all the

See that table in Philofop. Tranfact. Abridged, vol. ii. p. 454.

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