Page:Cornwall; Cambridge county geographies.djvu/114

 98 CORNWALL and from their intercourse with foreign merchants are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very skilfully the earth in which it is produced. The ground is rocky, but it contains earthy veins, the produce of which is ground down, smelted, and purified. They make the metal up into slabs shaped like knuckle- bones, and carry it to a certain island lying in front of Britain called Ictis. During the ebb of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and to this place they carry over abundance of tin in their waggons Here then, the merchants buy the tin from the natives, and carry it over to Gaul ; and after travelling overland for about thirty days, they finally bring their loads on pack-horses to the outlet of the Rhone." It is very doubtful whether Posidonius ever visited Britain. What he relates is doubt- less due to information received by him, either at Gades or at Massilia. According to Timaeus, the contemporary of Pytheas, the isle of Vectis was six days sail from Britain, u in an inward direction." Vectis, there can be little doubt, is the Isle of Wight, formerly connected with the mainland by a ridge of chalk since broken through by the waves. Ancient mariners coasted, and those who came to Britain for tin followed the Gallic shore till they could see the white cliffs of Dover, when they crossed, and coasted down channel to the Isle of Wight. There is no evidence that the Phoenicians ever visited Cornwall. Nor has a single relic of Phoenician art or coin been found in Cornwall. The traders with Britain were the Veneti of the Morbihan, in Brittany. More-