Tin, in its pure state, has nearly the color and luster of silver. In hardness, it is midway between gold and lead. It was known to the ancients, who procured it from Spain and Britain, and appears to have been in use in the time of Moses. It is rather a scarce metal, being found in but few parts of the world in any considerable quantity. Cornwall is its most productive source; it also occurs in the mountains between Gallicia and Portugal, and in those between Saxony and Bohemia. It has, also, been brought from Malacca, in India, and from Chili and Mexico. There are but two ores of tin; one of which, the native peroxyd, is the chief source of all the supplies of this metal, as the other ore, which is the double sulphuret of tin and copper, sometimes called _bell-metal ore_, is extremely rare. Cornwall has been in all ages, famous for its numerous mines of tin, which are in general very large, and rich in ore. The tin-works are of different kinds, dependent on the various forms in which the metal appears. In many places its ore so nearly resembles common stones, that it can only be distinguished from them by its superior weight. In other parts, the ore is a compound of tin and earth, concreted into a substance almost as hard as stone, of a bluish or grayish color, and to which the mundic, impregnated with copper, frequently gives a yellowish cast. This ore is always found in a continued stratum, which the miners call lode; and this, for the greater part, is found running through the solid substance of the hardest rocks, beginning in small veins near the surface, perhaps not above half an inch or an inch wide, and increasing, as they proceed, into large dimensions, branching out into several ramifications, and bending downward in a direction which is, generally, nearly east and west. These lodes, or veins, are sometimes white, very wide, and so thick, that large lumps of the ore are frequently drawn up of more than twenty pounds’ weight. The lodes of tin ore are not always contiguous, but sometimes break off so entirely, that they seem to terminate; but the sagacious miner knows by experience, that, by digging at a small distance on one side, he will meet with a separated part of the lode, apparently tallying with the other end, as nicely as if it had been broken off by some sudden shock of the rock.