Note 257 — Chapter V · THE SECOND CHALCITIC AGE OF ALLOYS[242]—BRONZE, BRASS, ETC.: THE AXE AND THE SWORD.

Beckmann (s.v. ‘Tin’) tells us that the metal ‘never occurs in a native state.’ He forgets stream-tin. He also denies that the oldest ‘cassiteron’ and ‘stannum’ were tin; and considers them to mean the German Werk, a regulus of silver and lead. His vasa stannea are vessels covered with tin in the inside. In the fourth century ‘plumbum candidum’ or ‘album’ was superseded by ‘stannum.’ Speaking of electrum, Beckmann asserts that ‘the ancients were not acquainted with the art of separating gold and silver.’ ‘Britain,’ Ynis Prydhain Island, where the god Prydhain was worshipped, or rather ‘Isle of the Brythons,’ has been fancifully derived by the energetic Semitiser from Barrat-et-Tanuk = Land of Tin.