Note 81 — EXCURSION IV.

Tin appears to have been formerly smelted by the Jews, who in the reign of King John monopolized the tin trade, by merely hollowing out a plot of ground, and fusing the oxide with wood, in an open fire. Many ancient remains of this operation have been discovered in different parts of Cornwall, in which portions of metallic tin embedded in a stratum of charred wood, or charcoal, have been found; and which have given rise to the fallacy respecting the discovery of this metal in a native state. In examining a fragment of this kind which was found under the surface of a low and boggy ground in the parish of Kea, the late eminent chemist, Mr. William Gregor, observed a vein of saline matter running through the mass, which he ascertained to be muriate of tin; a full account of this interesting phenomenon is published in the first volume of the Transactions of the Cornish Society.