[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.] [521] Lib. iii. p. 254. [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. [523] Supplementa in Lexica Hebraica p. 151. [524] The authors here quoted, corresponding to the above letters, are as follows:-- [a] Plinius, xxxiv. 16, p. 668. [b] Cæsar De Bello Gallico, v. 12. [c] Aristot. Auscult. Mirab. cap. 51, p. 100. [d] Galenus De Antidot. i. 8. p. 209. ed. gr. Basil. vol. ii. p. 431. [e] Plin. iv. 22. p. 630. [f] Herodot. lib. iii. p. 254. edit. Wess. [g] Plin. iv. 16, p. 223. [h] Strabo, lib. iii. p. 219. ed. Almel. [i] Strabo, lib. xv. p. 1055. [j] Diodor. Sic. lib. v. p. 347. ed. Wess. [k] Diod. Sic. lib. v. p. 361. [l] Stephan. Byzant. v. Tartessus, p. 639. [m] Dionys. Periegesis, v. 563. [n] Prisciani Perieg. v. 575. [o] Avienus Descript. Urbis, v. 743. [p] Homeri Iliad. xviii. 612. [q] Iliad. xi. 25. [r] Iliad. xxiii. 561. [s] Iliad. xviii. 565, 574. [t] Hesiod. Scut. Herculis, v. 208. [u] Aristot. Œconom. lib. ii. p. 594. [v] Pollux Onomast. p. 1055. [w] Pomp. Mela, iii. 6, 24, p. 275. [x] Plin. xxxiii. 5, p. 621. [y] Plin. xxxiv. 17, § 48, p. 669; and lib. xxxiii. § 45: Optima specula apud majores fuerant Brundisiana stanno et ære mixtis. From a similar mixture the best metallic specula are cast at present. [525] Borlase’s Antiquities of Cornwall. Ox. 1754, fol. p. 29. [526] Lib. iv. cap. 22, p. 230. [527] Minéralogie Homerique, Par. 1790, 8vo. A small treatise much esteemed. [528] Lib. xi. 24, 25. [529] See what I have already said, vol. i. p. 472. [530] Savot, p. 53.--Watson’s Chemical Essays, iv. p. 187. [531] Schefferi Lapponia, Francof. 1673, 4to, pp. 210, 261, where a figure is given of a Lapland woman drawing threads. [532] Phil. Trans. 1702, 1703, vol. xxiii. p. 1129. [533] Phil. Trans. 1759, vol. li. p. 13, where figures of the vessels are given. Whitaker’s Hist. of Manchester, i. p. 306. [534] Borlase’s Cornwall, p. 30; and his Observations on the Islands of Scilly. Oxf. 1756, 4to. [535] Natural Hist. of Cornwall, p. 177. [536] In the Antiquities of Cornwall, p. 394: _Ik_, _yk_, _ick_, a common termination of creeks in Cornwall, as _Pordinik_, _Pradnik_. [537] Dionysii Orbis Descriptio. Londini, 1679, 8vo, p. 220, where Hill’s observations deserve to be read. [538] Voyages de Chardin. Rouen, 1723, 12mo, iv. 65, where it is expressly said that Persia has no tin, but that it obtains it from India. The same thing is confirmed by Tavernier.