[2356] See pp. 250, 359-60, supra.
[2357] Mr. Alfred Tylor (Archaeologia, xlviii, 1885, p. 233) argues, in favour of the identification of Ictis with the Isle of Wight, that ‘Stans Ore Point is said to be named from Stannum (tin)’; and Elton (Origins of Eng. Hist., 1890, p. 230) thinks that ‘the course of the metal-trade may be indicated by the names of places on the coast-road leading eastward from the Exe, as ... Stans Ore Point’. Now, as O. Schrader points out (Prehist. Ant. of the Aryan Peoples, 1890, p. 217), stannum probably did not get the meaning of ‘tin’ before the fourth century A.D.; and even if the derivation in question could be established, it would not prove that Ictis was the Isle of Wight. Tin was doubtless conveyed eastward from Cornwall; but not for the supply of the Mediterranean markets.
[2358] Archaeologia, xlviii, 1885, p. 236.
[2359] vi, 2, § 6.—ᾬκουν δὲ καὶ Φοίνικες περὶ πᾶσαν μὲν τὴν Σικελίαν ἄκρας τε ἐπὶ τῇ θαλάσσῃ ἀπολαβόντες καὶ τὰ ἐπικείμενα νησίδια ἐμπορίας ἕνεκεν τῆς πρὸς τοὺς Σικελούς.
[2360] B. Jowett, Thucydides translated into English, i, 1881, p. 409.
[2361] Report of ... the Brit. Association, 1865 (1866), p. 71.
[2362] Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornwall, iii, 1828, pp. 91-4.
[2363] Principles of Geology, i, 1875, pp. 546-7.
[2364] The italics are mine. Müllenhoff (Deutsche Altertumskunde, i, 1890, pp. 471-2) asserts that ‘Ictis can only be looked for at the promontory of Belerium’ [the Land’s End], and that ‘it is undoubtedly one of the small islands off the Land’s End, which are marked on the Ordnance Map (sheets 32 and 33)’. It must be presumed that Müllenhoff came to this singular conclusion because Pytheas landed at Belerium. But there is no reason to suppose that he landed at the precise spot which we call the Land’s End; and if he did he certainly went on to visit the tin mines. If Müllenhoff had known the Cornish coast, or even studied the map carefully, he would have seen that tin could not have been conveyed in carts down the cliffs opposite the small islands to which he refers, and that, as Dr. Barham says (Trans. Roy. Geol. Soc. Cornwall, iii, 1828, p. 91), ‘there is not ... any other island [besides St. Michael’s Mount] on the Cornish, or any neighbouring shores to which carts can pass at low water; there is no other spot, at all answering to the description of Diodorus, which becomes alternately an island and a peninsula with the changes of the tide.’
George Smith (The Cassiterides, p. 114) points out that ‘twelve miles to the west of St. Michael’s Mount, and eighteen miles to the east of it, comprehend almost the whole of the ancient tin mining district’. Professor Rhys, on the other hand, states (Celtic Britain, 1904, p. 44) that the tin districts ‘in ancient times were chiefly Dartmoor, with the country around Tavistock, and that around St. Austell, including several valleys looking towards the southern coast of Cornwall’; and he adds that ‘in most of the other districts where tin existed it is supposed to have lain too deep to have been worked in early times’. I do not know whether among these ‘other districts’ he includes the one near St. Michael’s Mount; but it is certain that the tin in this district was worked in early times. It was the district of Belerium, where the tin-workers mentioned by Diodorus lived; and he says that there were veins of tin in the hard rock near the surface (αὕτη δὲ πετρώδης οὖσα διαφυὰς ἔχει γεώδεις, ἐν αἷς τὸν πόρον κατεργαζόμενοι καὶ τήξαντες καθαίρουσιν [v, 22, § 2]. Cf. Strabo, iii, 5, § 11, and Ency. Brit., 9th ed., vi, 425). Mr. P. W. Flower (Hist. of the Trade in Tin, 1880, p. 26) tells us that from pre-Roman days ‘Cornish men have been sinking deeper and deeper in their search for cheaper metal’; while Prof. Haverfield (Proc. Soc. Ant., 2nd ser., xviii, 1900, p. 122), after remarking that ‘the tin districts of Dartmoor [were] worked largely in the middle ages’, says, ‘The Dartmoor tin is, I believe, far more difficult to work than the Cornish, and this fact may explain the Roman neglect of it.’ See also, for evidence that Cornish tin was won in the Bronze Age, Archaeologia, xvi, 1812, p. 137, pl. 10; xlix, 1885, p. 181; and Archaeol. Journal, xxxi, 1874, pp. 53, 60. I am astonished to find that M. Salomon Reinach (L’Anthr., xvii, 1906, pp. 235-6), noticing a paper the writer of which maintains that no tin was worked in Britain until after the date of Domesday Book, says, ‘Cette manière de voir, bien que contredite par les textes, mérite réflexion.’