9. Tin was procured from Britain at a very early period. The Phoenicians are said by Strabo to have passed the Pillars of Hercules, now the Straits of Gibraltar, about 1200 years before Christ. But the time at which they discovered the tin islands, which they denominated _Cassorides_, cannot be ascertained from history, although it is evident from many circumstances, that the Scilly Islands, and the western ports of Britain, were the places from which these early navigators procured the tin with which they supplied the parts of the world to which they traded. 10. For a long time, the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians enjoyed the tin trade, to the exclusion of all other nations. After the destruction of Carthage by the Romans, a colony of Phocean Greeks, established at Marseilles, carried on this trade; but it came into the hands of the Romans, after the conquest of Britain by Julius Cæsar. 11. The Cornish mines furnish incontestable proofs of having been worked many hundred years ago. In digging to the depth of forty or fifty fathoms, the miners frequently meet with large timbers imbedded in the ore. Tools for mining have also been found in the same, or similar situations. The mines, therefore, which had been exhausted of the ore, have, in the course of time, been replenished by a process of nature. 12. To what purposes the ancients applied all the tin which they procured at so much labor and cost, is not precisely known. It is probable, that the Tyrians consumed a portion of it, in dyeing their purple and scarlet. It formed then, as it now does, many important alloys with copper. The mirrors of antiquity were made of a composition of these metals. 13. The method of extracting tin from its ores was probably very defective in ancient times. At least, it was so for several centuries before the time of Elizabeth, when Sir Francis Godolphin introduced great improvements in the tin works. The use of the reverberatory furnace was commenced, about the beginning of the eighteenth century, and soon after pit-coal was substituted for charcoal. 14. This metal, in its solid state, is called _block-tin_. It is applied, without any admixture with any other metal, to the formation of vessels, which are not to be exposed to a temperature much above that of hot water. A kind of ware, called _biddery ware_, is made of tin alloyed with a little copper. The vessels made of this composition, are rendered black by the application of nitre, common salt, and sal ammoniac. _Foil_ is also made by pressing it between steel rollers, or by hammering it, as in the case of gold by the gold-beaters.