[503] [Tin-stone however occurs in Spain and Portugal; and Watson, in his Chemical Essays, states that Spain furnished the ancients with considerable quantities of tin.]
[504] Native tin never, or at any rate, very rarely occurs. In the year 1765 a piece was supposed to be found, of which an account may be seen in the Phil. Trans. vol. lvi. p. 35, and vol. lix. p. 47. But the truth of this was denied by most mineralogists, such for example as Jars in Mémoires de l’Acad. à Paris, année 1770, p. 540. Soon after the above-mentioned piece of tin was found in Cornwall, some dealers in minerals sold similar pieces to amateurs at a very dear rate; but all these had been taken from roasting-places, where the tin exudes; and very often what is supposed to be tin is only exuded bismuth, as is proved by some specimens in my collection.
I shall here observe, that it may not be improper, in the history of tin, to show that it was believed more than two hundred years ago that this metal was found in a native state.
[505] Having requested Professor Tychsen, to whose profound knowledge of Oriental history, languages, and literature I have been already indebted for much assistance, to point out the grounds on which bedil is considered to be our tin, I received the following answer, with permission to insert it in this place.
“Bedil, בדיל, according to the most probable derivation, means the separated. It may therefore, consistent with etymology, be what Pliny calls stannum, not tin, but lead from which the silver has not been sufficiently separated. The passage in Isaiah, chap. i. ver. 25, appears to afford a confirmation, because the word there is put in the plural, equivalent to scoriæ, as something separated by fusion.
“Others derive bedil from the meaning of the Arabic word بدل badal, that is, substitutum, succedaneum. In this case indeed it might mean tin, which may be readily confounded with silver.
“The questions, why bedil has been translated tin, and how old this explanation may be, are answered by another: Is κασσίτερος tin? If this be admitted, the explanation is as old as the Greek version of the seventy interpreters, who in most passages, Ezekiel, chap. xxii. ver. 18 and 20, and chap. xxvii. ver. 12, express it by the word κασσίτερος. In the last-mentioned passage, tin and iron have exchanged places. The Targumists also call it tin; and some, with the Samaritan translation, use the Greek word, but corrupted into kasteron, kastira. It is also the usual Jewish explanation, that bedil means tin, as oferet does lead.
“In the oldest passage, however, where bedil occurs, that is in Numbers, chap. xxxi. ver. 22, the Seventy translate it by μόλιβος, lead, and the Vulgate by plumbum, and vice versâ, the Seventy for oferet put κασσίτερος, and the Vulgate stannum. This, as the oldest explanation which the Latin translator found already in the Septuagint, is particularly worthy of notice. According to it, one might take בדיל, μόλιβος, stannum, for the stannum of Pliny, lead with silver; the gradation of the metals still remains; the κασσίτερος of the Seventy may be tin or real lead. It may have denoted tin and lead together, and perhaps the Seventy placed here κασσίτερος, in order that they might have one metal more for the Hebrew oferet. But from this explanation it would follow that Moses was not acquainted with tin.
“The East has still another name for lead and tin, אנך, anac, which occurs only in Amos, chap. vii. ver. 7 and 8, but is abundant in the Syriac, Chaldaic, and Armenian, and comprehends plumbum, nigrum, and candidum.
“In the Persian tin is named kalai, resâs, arziz, which are all of Arabic, or, like kalai, of Turkish extraction. None of these have any affinity to κασσίτερος and bedil.