Note 3164 — BOOK IV. AN ACCOUNT OF COUNTRIES, NATIONS, SEAS, TOWNS, HAVENS, MOUNTAINS, RIVERS, DISTANCES, AND PEOPLES WHO NOW EXIST OR FORMERLY EXISTED.

From the Greek κασσίτερος, “tin.” It is generally supposed that the “Tin Islands” were the Scilly Isles, in the vicinity of Cornwall. At the same time the Greek and Roman geographers, borrowing their knowledge from the accounts probably of the Phœnician merchants, seem to have had a very indistinct notion of their precise locality, and to have thought them to be nearer to Spain than to Britain. Thus we find Strabo, in B. iii., saying, that “the Cassiterides are ten in number, lying near each other in the ocean, towards the north from the haven of the Artabri.” From a comparison of the accounts, it would almost appear that the ancient geographers confused the Scilly Islands with the Azores, as those, who enter into any detail, attribute to the Cassiterides the characteristics almost as much of the Azores and the sea in their vicinity, as of the Scilly Islands.