Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 1, 1890.djvu/89

Rh v, 12). It is quite possible, as we shall see hereafter, that the tin trade with the Continent had died out in the time of Cæsar, and that it was not until after the Roman conquest, in the middle of the following century, that the mines of Cornwall were again developed. To the list of imports given by Strabo we may add copper, on the authority of Cæsar (, v, 12). Diodorus Siculus (v, 22) gives an account of the tin mining in Cornwall, which is probably based on the account of the Stoic Posidonius, who travelled in Britain about B.C. 90:

“The inhabitants of that part of Britain which is called Belerion are very fond of strangers, and, from their intercourse with foreign merchants, are civilised in their manner of life. They prepare the tin, working very carefully 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 beat the metal into masses, shaped like astragali, and carry it to a certain island lying off Britain called Ictis. During the ebb of the tide the intervening space is left dry, and they carry over into this island the tin in abundance in their waggons. Now there is a peculiar phenomenon connected with the neighbouring islands, I mean those that lie between Europe and Britain; for at the flood-tide the intervening passage is overflowed, and they seem like islands; but a large space is left dry at the ebb, and then they seem to be like peninsulas. 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 horses to the mouth of the Rhone.”