A History of Inventions, Discoveries, and Origins, Volume II (of 2)

Tin is one of those minerals which hitherto have been found in quantity only in a few countries, none of which ever belonged to the Greeks or the Romans[503 - [Tin-stone however occurs in Spain and Portugal; and Watson, in his Chemical Essays, states that Spain furnished the ancients with considerable quantities of tin.]], or were visited, at an early period, by their merchants. As it never occurs in a native state[504 - Native tin never, or at any rate, very rarely occurs. In the year 1765 a piece was supposed to be found, of which an account may be seen in the Phil. Trans. vol. lvi. p. 35, and vol. lix. p. 47. But the truth of this was denied by most mineralogists, such for example as Jars in Mémoires de l’Acad. à Paris, année 1770, p. 540. Soon after the above-mentioned piece of tin was found in Cornwall, some dealers in minerals sold similar pieces to amateurs at a very dear rate; but all these had been taken from roasting-places, where the tin exudes; and very often what is supposed to be tin is only exuded bismuth, as is proved by some specimens in my collection.I shall here observe, that it may not be improper, in the history of tin, to show that it was believed more than two hundred years ago that this metal was found in a native state.], the discovery of it supposes some accident more extraordinary than that of those metals which are commonly, or at any rate, often found native. I cannot, however, attach much importance to this circumstance, as the ancients became acquainted with iron at an early period, though not so early as with copper. I must also admit that tin might have been more easily discovered, because it is frequently found near the surface of the earth; does not require a strong heat or artificial apparatus for fusing it, and therefore can be more easily won than copper.

But if tin was known so early as has hitherto been believed, it must, on account of the circumstance here first remarked, have been scarce and therefore exceedingly dear. In this manner the aurichalcum or Corinthian brass, according to the expression of Plautus, was “auro contra carum.” The metal of the ancients, however, which is believed to have been tin, was not so rare and costly. Vessels of it are not often mentioned, in general; but they never occur among valuable articles. The circumstance also, that vessels of tin have never or very seldom been found among Greek or Roman antiquities, and that when discovered the nature of the metal has been very doubtful, though tin is not apt to change from the action of the air, water, or earth, and at any rate far surpasses in durability copper and lead, ancient articles made of which are frequently found, appears to me worthy of attention. It possesses also so many excellent properties, that it might be expected that the people of every age, to whom it was known, would have employed it in a great variety of ways. It recommends itself by its superior silvery colour; its ready fusion; the ease with which it can be hammered and twisted; its lightness, and its durability. It is not soon tarnished; it is still less liable to rust or to become oxidized; it retains its splendour a long time, and when it is lost easily recovers it again. It is not so soon attacked by salts as many other metals; and this till lately has been considered a proof of its being less pernicious than it possibly may be. After an accurate investigation, should everything said by the ancients of their supposed tin be as applicable to a metallic mixture as to our tin, my assertion, that it is probable, but by no means certain, that the ancients were acquainted with our tin, will be fully justified.

The oldest mention of this metal, as generally believed, is to be found in the sacred scriptures. In the book of Numbers, chap. xxxi. ver. 22, Moses seems to name all the metals then known; and, besides gold, silver, brass (properly copper), iron, and lead, he mentions also bedil, which all commentators and dictionaries make to be tin. When Ezekiel, chap. xxvii. ver. 12, gives an account of the commerce of Tyre, he names, among the commodities, silver, iron, copper, and bedil. In Zechariah, chap. iv. ver. 10, the plummet of the builder or architect is said to be made of the bedil stone. In Isaiah, chap. i. ver. 25, the word occurs in the plural number, and appears there to denote either scoriæ, or all those inferior metallic substances which must be separated from the noble metals. In the old Greek versions of these Hebrew books, bedil is always translated by cassiteros, except in the passage of Isaiah, where no metal is mentioned. In Zechariah, the translator calls the bedil stone τὸν λίθον κασσιτέρινον. There can hardly be a doubt, that for the purpose here mentioned, people would employ, not the lighter metal tin, but lead, and that the plummet was called the lead-stone, because at first a stone was used.

It seems, however, probable that in the first-quoted passage bedil is our tin; but must it not appear astonishing that the Midianites, in the time of Moses, should have possessed this metal? Is it not possible that the Hebrew word denoted a metallic mixture or artificial metal, which formerly was an article of commerce, as our brass is at present[505 - Having requested Professor Tychsen, to whose profound knowledge of Oriental history, languages, and literature I have been already indebted for much assistance, to point out the grounds on which bedil is considered to be our tin, I received the following answer, with permission to insert it in this place.“Bedil, בדיל, according to the most probable derivation, means the separated. It may therefore, consistent with etymology, be what Pliny calls stannum, not tin, but lead from which the silver has not been sufficiently separated. The passage in Isaiah, chap. i. ver. 25, appears to afford a confirmation, because the word there is put in the plural, equivalent to scoriæ, as something separated by fusion.“Others derive bedil from the meaning of the Arabic word بدل badal, that is, substitutum, succedaneum. In this case indeed it might mean tin, which may be readily confounded with silver.“The questions, why bedil has been translated tin, and how old this explanation may be, are answered by another: Is κασσίτερος tin? If this be admitted, the explanation is as old as the Greek version of the seventy interpreters, who in most passages, Ezekiel, chap. xxii. ver. 18 and 20, and chap. xxvii. ver. 12, express it by the word κασσίτερος. In the last-mentioned passage, tin and iron have exchanged places. The Targumists also call it tin; and some, with the Samaritan translation, use the Greek word, but corrupted into kasteron, kastira. It is also the usual Jewish explanation, that bedil means tin, as oferet does lead.“In the oldest passage, however, where bedil occurs, that is in Numbers, chap. xxxi. ver. 22, the Seventy translate it by μόλιβος, lead, and the Vulgate by plumbum, and vice versâ, the Seventy for oferet put κασσίτερος, and the Vulgate stannum. This, as the oldest explanation which the Latin translator found already in the Septuagint, is particularly worthy of notice. According to it, one might take בדיל, μόλιβος, stannum, for the stannum of Pliny, lead with silver; the gradation of the metals still remains; the κασσίτερος of the Seventy may be tin or real lead. It may have denoted tin and lead together, and perhaps the Seventy placed here κασσίτερος, in order that they might have one metal more for the Hebrew oferet. But from this explanation it would follow that Moses was not acquainted with tin.“The East has still another name for lead and tin, אנך, anac, which occurs only in Amos, chap. vii. ver. 7 and 8, but is abundant in the Syriac, Chaldaic, and Armenian, and comprehends plumbum, nigrum, and candidum.“In the Persian tin is named kalai, resâs, arziz, which are all of Arabic, or, like kalai, of Turkish extraction. None of these have any affinity to κασσίτερος and bedil.“As tin is brought from India, it occurred to me whether the oldest name, like tombak, might not be Malayan. But in the Malayan, tima is the name for tin and lead. Relandi Dissertat. Miscell. iii. p. 65. It would indeed be in vain to look for Asiatic etymologies in regard to κασσίτερος, since, according to the express assertion of Herodotus, the Greeks did not procure tin from Asia, but from the Cassiterides islands. The name may be Phœnician; and though Bochart has not ventured to give any etymology of it, one, in case of necessity, might have been found equally probable as that which he has given of Britannia. But it appears to me more probable that the word is of Celtic extraction, because similar names are found in Britain, such as Cassi, an old British family; Cassivelaunus, a British leader opposed to Cæsar; Cassibelanus, in all probability, the same name in the time of Claudius. Cassi-ter, with the Greek termination ος, seems to be a Celtic compound, the meaning of which might perhaps be found in Pelletier, Bullet, &c.”]?

The Greek translators considered bedil to be what they called cassiteros; and as the moderns translated this by stannum, these words have thus found their way into the Latin, German, and other versions of the Hebrew scriptures, which therefore can contribute very little towards the history of this metal. The examination of the word cassiteros would be of more importance; but before I proceed to it, I shall make some observations on what the ancients called stannum.

This, at present, is the general name of our tin; and from it seem to be formed the estain of the French, the tin of the Low German and English, and the zinn of the High German. It can, however, be fully proved that the stannum of the ancients was no peculiar metal; at any rate not our tin, but rather a mixture of two other metals, which, like our brass, was made into various articles and employed for different purposes, on which account a great trade was carried on with it. This, at least, may with great certainty be concluded from a well-known passage of Pliny[506 - Plin. lib. xxxiv. cap. 16, § 47, p. 669.]; though to us, because we are not fully acquainted with the metallurgic operations of the ancients, it is not sufficiently intelligible. What I have been able to collect, however, towards illustrating the passage, with the assistance of my predecessors, and by comparing myself the account of the Roman with our works, I shall here lay before the reader; and perhaps it may induce others to improve and enlarge it.

But I must first observe, that there can be no doubt that the nigrum plumbum of the ancients was our lead. This metal, according to Pliny’s account, they obtained in two ways. First, from their own lead mines or lead ore, which immediately on its fusion gave pure or saleable lead. To comprehend this, it is necessary to know that most kinds of lead ore contain also silver, and many of them in such quantity that they might with more propriety be called silver ores, or rather argentiferous lead ores or plumbiferous silver ores. Those which contain no silver are so scarce, that I am ignorant whether any other has yet been found, except that of Bleyberg, not far from Villach, in Carinthia. As Villach lead, according to some experiments made on a large scale, is entirely free from silver, it is well-known, and particularly useful for assaying.

It may therefore appear singular that the ancients had lead of this kind in such abundance that Pliny was able to make of it a particular division. But it is to be observed, that in ancient times people paid little attention to a small admixture of silver; and that they were accustomed to separate this metal only when it was capable, by the old imperfect process of smelting, to defray the expenses, which certainly would not be the case, when a quintal of ore contained only a few ounces, or even a pound of silver. Strabo says this expressly of some Spanish ores. Such poor ores were then used merely for lead; and our silver refiners, without doubt, would separate silver with considerable advantage from the lead of the ancients. Hence has arisen the common opinion, that lead and also copper, with which some of the oldest buildings are covered, had in the course of time become argentiferous. This is impossible; but it is possible for us to separate from them the noble metal, which the ancients either could not do, or did not think it worth the trouble to attempt.

Secondly, the ancients obtained, as we do, a great deal of lead from argentiferous ores, from which they separated the silver and revived the lead. The ore was pounded very fine, or, as we say, stamped; it was then washed and roasted, and formed into a powder or paste. This was then put into the furnace, and by the first fusion gave a regulus consisting of silver and lead, which was called stannum, and was the same substance as that known to our metallurgists by the name of werk. If it was required to separate the silver, it was again fused, not in the first furnace, but in a particular refining furnace with a hearth of lixiviated ashes. This circumstance Pliny has not mentioned; perhaps it appeared to him unnecessary; perhaps he did not fully understand every part of the process; and were one inclined to say anything in his defence, modern travels and other works might be quoted, in which metallurgic operations are described in a manner no less imperfect. The produce obtained by the second fusion, called in German treiben or abtreiben, was silver, and besides that half-vitrified lead, glätte, which in part falls into the hearth. This substance, called by Pliny galena, a word which denotes also molybdæna[507 - The last meaning is found in Pliny, xxxiii. 6, § 31, and xxxiv. 18, § 53: – “Est et molybdæna, quam alio loco galenam vocavimus, vena argenti plumbique communis. Adhærescit et auri et argenti fornacibus; et hanc metallicam vocant.” Here then there are both the significations, first bleyglanz, secondly ofenbruch. The name galena seems to have been borrowed from foreign metallurgic works, perhaps from the Spanish, as was conjectured by Agricola in Bermannus, p. 434. This, at any rate, is more probable than the derivation of Vossius from γέλειν, splendere, especially as the Greeks have not the word galena.], was once more fused or revived, and then gave lead. In this manner were obtained three different productions, which were all used in commerce, namely, stannum, argentum and galena, or revived lead, plumbum nigrum. These Pliny seems to have considered as component parts of lead ore; but not indeed according to the present signification[508 - I explain the passage in this manner, but I acknowledge that difficulties still remain. I have however thought that it might perhaps be thus understood; that in the process of fusion, as then used, the galena formed the third part of the weight of the ore or paste, and lead a third part of the galena; though I doubt whether the products of metallic works were then so accurately weighed. I shall leave the reader to determine whether the two explanations of Savot are better. He supposes either that Pliny gives three ways of obtaining lead, namely, from lead ore, argentiferous ore, and galena; or that he says that silver forms a third, lead a third, and slag the remaining third. But if the first opinion be correct, why did Pliny say “Plumbi origo duplex?”].

Though it must be confessed that this passage of Pliny cannot be fully understood by any explanation, it proves to conviction that the stannum of the ancients was neither our tin nor a peculiar metal, but the werk of our smelting-houses. This was long ago remarked by those writers who were acquainted with metallurgy, of whom I shall here mention Agricola[509 - Bermannus, pp. 450, 485.], Encelius[510 - De Re Metallica, lib. iii. Franc. (1551), 8vo.], Fallopius[511 - De Metallis, cap. 22. Franc. 1606, fol. i. p. 322.], Savot[512 - Discours sur les médailles antiques par Louis Savot. Paris, 1627, 4to, ii. 2, p. 48. This work contains valuable information in regard to the mineralogy of the ancients.], Bernia[513 - In Aldrovandi Musæum Metallicum. Bonon. 1648, fol. p. 181.], and Jung[514 - J. Jungii Doxoscopia, Hamb. 1662, cap. 5, de metalli speciebus.].

The ancients used, as a peculiar metal, a mixture of gold and silver, because they were not acquainted with the art of separating them, and afterwards gave it the name of electrum. In the like manner they employed werk or stannum, which was obtained almost in the same manner in the fusion of silver. In all probability it was employed before people became acquainted with the art of separating these two metals, and continued in use through habit, even after a method of separating them was discovered. If the ore subjected to fusion was abundant in silver, this mixture approached near to the noble metals; if poor in silver, it consisted chiefly of lead. When it consisted of silver and lead only, it was soft and ductile; but if other metals, difficult of fusion, such as copper, iron, or zinc, were intermixed, it was harder and more brittle, and in that case approached nearer to what the German silver refiners call abzug and abstrich.

That this stannum was employed as an article of commerce, and that the ancients made of it vessels of various kinds, cannot be doubted. The vasa stannea however may be considered as vessels which were covered with tin only in the inside; for that this was customary I shall prove hereafter. In general, these vasa stannea are named where mention is made of saline or oily things, or such as would readily acquire a taste and smell from other metals, were they boiled or preserved in them for any length of time[515 - I shall here point out a few passages where such vessels are mentioned. Dioscorides, ii. 84, p. 109. – Plin. xxix. 2, § 20; xxx. 5, § 12, and xxx. 7, § 19. – Columella, xii. 41. – Vegetius, i. 16. – Scribonius Largus Composit. Med. Patavii, 1655, 4to, § 230.].

It has been long ago remarked that most of the Roman vessels were made of copper, and that these people were acquainted with the art of tinning or silvering them; but that tinned vessels have never been found, and silvered ones very rarely. Hence so many things appear to have been made of what is called bronze, which is less liable to acquire that dangerous rust or oxide, known under the name of verdigris, than pure copper. This bronze is sometimes given out as Corinthian and sometimes Syracusan brass, as the gold-coloured coins of the first size were considered to be Corinthian brass also. But in my opinion, a great and perhaps the greater part of all these things were made of stannum, properly so called, which by the admixture of the noble metals, and some difficult of fusion, was rendered fitter for use than pure copper. We are told by Suetonius, that the emperor Vitellius took away all the gold and silver from the temples and substituted in their stead aurichalcum and stannum[516 - Sueton. Vitell. 6, p. 192; where it is said tin, which was of a white colour, was to serve instead of silver.].

Whether the Greeks worked stannum, and under what name, I do not know: perhaps we ought to class here the κασσιτέρινα of the oldest times, of which I shall speak hereafter.

What I have already said in regard to werk will be rendered more certain by the circumstance, that even two centuries ago, vessels of all kinds called halbwerk were made of it in Germany. This we are told by Encelius[517 - In the work already quoted, i. cap. 32, p. 64: “Vides stannum Plinio esse quiddam de plumbo nigro, nempe primum fluorem plumbi nigri;” so that when our lead ore is fused, the first part that flows would be the stannum of Pliny. “Et hoc docet Plinius adulterari plumbo candido;” with our tin, and properly considered the stannum of Pliny is merely our halbwerk, of which those cans called halbwerk are made.Entzel deserves that I should here revive the remembrance of him. He was a native of Salfeld; preacher, pastor Osterhusensis, and a friend of Melancthon, who recommended the book for publication to Egenholf, a bookseller of Frankfort, in a letter dated 1551, in which year it was first printed. It was reprinted at the same place in 1557, and at Basle in 1555, 8vo.] as a thing well-known in his time, which however I should wish to see further examined. I have searched in vain for this name in a great many works of the sixteenth century; but I have long entertained an idea, which I shall take this opportunity of mentioning: – Among the oldest church vessels I have seen some articles which I considered to be vasa stannea, I mean such as when newly scoured and polished had a silvery brightness, and when they remained long without being cleaned acquired a dull gray colour, and a greater weight than bronze. Those who show these things commonly say that the method of composing the metal is lost; but that it contains silver, and according to the assertion of many, even gold. Such articles deserve, undoubtedly, to be examined by our chemists.

I shall further remark, on this subject, that the abstrich, as it is called, which in many respects has a resemblance to stannum, and contains also lead and silver, but at the same time metals difficult of fusion, is employed in the arts, and collected for the use of the letter-founders[518 - The French letter-founders take four-fifths of lead and one-fifth regulus of antimony; those of Berlin use eleven pounds of antimony, twenty-five of lead, and five of iron. Many add also tin, copper, and brass. [Those of England use three parts of lead and one of antimony.]]. For this purpose it is well-adapted, on account of its hardness and durability; and in want of it lead must be mixed with regulus of antimony. At the Lower Harze the workmen began so early as 1688 to revive this abstrich in particular; and as the lead thence obtained, on account of its hardness, could not be disposed of like common lead, it was sold to the letter-founders at Brunswick, at first at the rate of a hundred weight for two and a half dollars, and in the year 1689 for three dollars. But in Schlüter’s time a small quantity of it only was made annually, because the abstrich could be used with more advantage for other purposes. This lead, says Schlüter, had the appearance of bronze, and was so brittle, that a piece of it broke into fragments when struck[519 - Von Hutten-werken, p. 376.].

Speise also, which is obtained at the blue colour-works, can be employed in the same manner. Under this term is understood a metallic mixture deposited during the preparation of blue glass, and which is composed of various metals combined with cobalt, but particularly nickel, iron, copper, arsenic, and perhaps also bismuth. It is hard, brittle, sonorous, and assumes a good polish, though it is not always of the same quality in all manufactories. As it contains some colouring particles, it is in general again added to the glass residuum. But when I lately paid a visit to the colour-mill at Carlshafen, M. Birnstein the inspector told me, that the speise was manufactured at Halle into buttons of every kind. This probably is the case there in those button-manufactories established by G. H. Schier, in which buttons of all patterns are made annually to the value of 30,000 dollars[520 - A good account of this manufactory may be found in the Journal für Fabrik, Manufact. Handlung und Mode, 1793. We are told there that the buttons were made of a composition which had a white silver-like colour, and was susceptible of a fine polish. [This was probably some alloy of nickel, one of the principal constituents of German silver.]]. The ancients, in my opinion, employed in a similar manner the werk of their silver smelting-houses.

I shall now proceed to examine that metal which the Greeks named κασσίτερος, or, as Pliny says, Cassiteron, and which he expressly adds was called by the Latins plumbum candidum (white lead). I have no new hypothesis to recommend; my sole object is truth. I wish for certainty, and, when that is not to be obtained, probability; at the same time, however, I cannot rest satisfied with the judgement given by the compilers of dictionaries, and the translators and commentators of ancient authors, because I firmly believe that they never made any researches themselves on the subject.

That the ancients were acquainted with our tin as early as we find the word cassiteros mentioned by them, I am not able to prove, and I doubt whether it is possible to do so; the contrary seems to me to be more probable. In my opinion, it was impossible for the Phœnicians, at so early a period, to obtain this metal from Portugal, Spain, and England, in such quantity that it could be spread all over the old world. The carriage of merchandise was not then so easy. If all the cassiteron was procured from the north-west parts of Europe, it appears to me that it must have been much dearer than it seems to have been in the oldest times, to judge from the information that has been preserved.

In my opinion, the oldest cassiteron was nothing else than the stannum of the Romans, the werk of our smelting-houses, that is, a mixture of lead, silver, and some other accidental metals. That this has not been expressly remarked by any Greek writer, is to me not at all surprising. The works of those who might be supposed to have possessed knowledge of this kind have not been handed down to us. We should not have known what stannum was, had not the only passage of Pliny which informs us been preserved. I am as little surprised that Herodotus should say he did not know where cassiteron was obtained. How many modern historians are ignorant of the place from which zinc, bismuth, and tombac are brought! and however easy it might be for our historians to acquire knowledge of this kind if they chose, it was in the same degree difficult for Herodotus, in whose time there were not works on mineralogy, technology, and commerce, to furnish such information. At the period when he lived, cassiteron perhaps was no metallurgic production of any neighbouring mines, but a foreign commodity, a knowledge of which, mercantile people endeavoured in those early ages, much more than is the case in modern times, to conceal, and which also could be better concealed than at present.

That real tin was afterwards known to the Greeks, I readily believe; but I find no proof of it, nor can I determine the time at which they first became acquainted with this metal. It is not improbable that they considered it only as a variety of their old cassiteron, or the stannum of the Romans, as the latter declared both to be a variety of lead. It might be expected that the Greeks would have given a peculiar name to the new tin, in order to distinguish it from the old, as the Romans really did; but this appears not to have been the case. I think, however, to have remarked that, so early as the time of Aristotle, real foreign tin was called the Tyrian or Celtic, because Tyre undoubtedly was, at that period, the market for this commodity.

According to the conjectural accounts hitherto given, there is no necessity for believing the word cassiteron to be Phœnician or Celtic. The Greeks seem to have used it before they had Phœnician tin; and because they afterwards considered the Phœnician ware as a kind of their cassiteron, and at the same time heard of islands from which it was brought, they named these islands the Cassiterian, as Herodotus has done, though he expressly says that he did not know where they were situated. This ancient historian seems to have entertained nearly the same opinion in regard to the origin of the name, for he adds, “At any rate the name Eridanus is not foreign, but originally Greek[521 - Lib. iii. p. 254.].” It is, however, very possible that every thing said of these islands, in the time of Herodotus, was merely a fabrication of the Greek merchants, none of whom had the least knowledge of the Phœnician trade to England[522 - That the merchants, in the oldest periods, endeavoured by false information to conceal the sources of their trade, might be proved by various instances.]. In this case the bedil of the Hebrews might be only stannum, and thus would be removed the wonder of Michaelis, how the Midianites could have obtained tin so early[523 - Supplementa in Lexica Hebraica p. 151.]. I will not, however, deny that the contrary of what has been here stated is equally possible. The Greeks might have obtained real tin at a very early period by trade, and along with it the foreign name, from which was formed cassiteros. The art of preparing stannum may not have been known among them, and therefore under the cassiteron of the Greeks we must undoubtedly understand tin. In this case one could comprehend why stannum is not mentioned in the works of the Greeks; and if the plumbum album of Pliny be our tin, of which there can be scarcely a doubt, his testimony that the cassiteron of Homer was the same belongs to this place.

In regard to the question, which opinion seems the most probable, I will not enter into any dispute; but I must maintain that, in regard to the periods of Homer and Herodotus, no certainty can be obtained. To justify this assertion, I shall here point out everything I have found relating to cassiteron, and, as far as possible, in the original words, quoting the different works in the manner in which all the words for dictionaries of natural history ought to be arranged.

I. Vocatur Latinis plumbum candiduma (#Footnote_A) sive albuma (#Footnote_A)b (#Footnote_B), et Græcis jam Iliacis temporibus teste Homero cassiterona (#Footnote_A).

II. Mineræ (calculi) coloris nigri, quibus eadem gravitas quæ auroa (#Footnote_A).

III. Non nascitur cum argento, quod ex nigro fita (#Footnote_A).

IV. Nascitur summa tellure arenosaa (#Footnote_A); sed etiam ex profunda effoditurh (#Footnote_H).

V. Arenæ istæ lavantur a metallicis, conflatæque in album plumbum resolvuntura (#Footnote_A).

VI. Plumbum candidum est pretiosius nigroa (#Footnote_A).

VII. Facile in igne fluit, ita ut plumbi albi experimentum in charta sit, ut liquefactum pondere videatur, non calore rupissea (#Footnote_A)c (#Footnote_C). Celticum citius quam plumbum fluit, atque adeo in aqua; colore inficit, quæcunque tangatc (#Footnote_C).

VIII. Nulli rei sine mixtura utilea (#Footnote_A).

IX. Adulteratur plumbo nigrod (#Footnote_D).

X. Stannum adulteratur addita æris candidi tertia portione in plumbum albuma (#Footnote_A).

XI. Incoquitur æris operibus, Galliarum invento, ita ut vix discerni possit ab argento, eaque incoctilia vocanta (#Footnote_A).

XII. Adhibetur ad ocreas heroump (#Footnote_P); ad thoraces exornandosq (#Footnote_Q)r (#Footnote_R); ad scuta ornandas (#Footnote_S)t (#Footnote_T); ad speculay (#Footnote_Y).

XIII. Ex eo nummos percussit Dionysius tyrannus Syrac.u (#Footnote_U)v (#Footnote_V).

XIV. Secum jungi nequit sine plumbo nigro, nec plumbum nigrum inter se jungi potest sinealboa (#Footnote_A)x (#Footnote_X).

XV. Gignitur in Hispaniah (#Footnote_H); Lusitaniaa (#Footnote_A)h (#Footnote_H) Gallæciaa (#Footnote_A), in Iberiak (#Footnote_K)l (#Footnote_L), apud Artabrosh (#Footnote_H), in Britanniaj (#Footnote_J): in insulis quæ Cassiterides dictæ sunt Græcise (#Footnote_E)f (#Footnote_F)h (#Footnote_H)k (#Footnote_K)w (#Footnote_W), in insula quam Mictim vocat Timæus, et a Britannia sex dierum navigatione abesse refertg (#Footnote_G); in insulis Hesperidibusm (#Footnote_M)n (#Footnote_N)o (#Footnote_O) apud Drangas populos Persicos regionis Arianæi (#Footnote_I).[524 - The authors here quoted, corresponding to the above letters, are as follows: —

Plinius, xxxiv. 16, p. 668.

Cæsar De Bello Gallico, v. 12.

Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. cap. 51, p. 100.

Galenus De Antidot. i. 8. p. 209. ed. gr. Basil. vol. ii. p. 431.

Plin. iv. 22. p. 630.

Herodot. lib. iii. p. 254. edit. Wess.

Plin. iv. 16, p. 223.

Strabo, lib. iii. p. 219. ed. Almel.

Strabo, lib. xv. p. 1055.

Diodor. Sic. lib. v. p. 347. ed. Wess.

Diod. Sic. lib. v. p. 361.

Stephan. Byzant. v. Tartessus, p. 639.