|
412
|
BOOK IX.
|
||
|
|
|||
|
As there is no need for the smelters to have a fierce fire, it is not necessary
to place the nozzles of the bellows in bronze or iron pipes, but only through a hole in the furnace wall. They place the bellows higher at the back so that the blast from the nozzles may blow straight toward the tap-hole of the furnace. That it may not be too fierce, the nozzles are wide, for if the fire were fiercer, tin could not be melted out from the tin-stone, as it would be consumed and turned into ashes. Near the steps is a hollowed stone, in which is placed the tin-stone to be smelted ; as often as the smelter throws into the furnace an iron shovel-ful of this tin-stone, he puts on charcoal that was first put into a vat and washed with water to be cleansed from the grit and small stones which adhere to it, lest they melt at the same time as the tin-stone and obstruct the tap-hole and impede the flow of tin from the furnace. The tap-hole of the furnace is always open ; in front of it is a forehearth a little more than half a foot deep, three-quarters of two feet long and one foot wide ; this is lined with lute, and the tin from the tap-hole flows into it. On one side of the forehearth is a low wall, three-quarters of a foot wider and one foot longer than the forehearth, on which lies charcoal powder. On the other side the floor of the building slopes, so that the slags may conveniently run down and be carried away. As soon as the tin begins to run from the tap-hole of the furnace into the forehearth, the smelter scrapes slender threads indicate the East, we believe that a more local supply to Egypt, etc., is not
impossible. The discovery of large tin fields in Central Africa and the native-made tin ornaments in circulation among the negroes, made possible the entrance of the metal into Egypt along the trade routes. Further, we see no reason why alluvial tin may not have existed within easy reach and have become exhausted. How quickly such a source of metal supply can be forgotten and no evidence remain, is indicated by the seldom remembered alluvial gold supply from Ireland. However, be these conjectures as they may, the East has long been the scene of tin production and of transportation activity. Among the slender evidences that point in this direction is that the Sanskrit term for tin is kastira, a term also employed by the Chaldeans, and represented in Arabic by kasdir, and it may have been the progenitor of the Greek cassiteros. There can be no doubt that the Phoenicians also traded with Malacca, etc, but beyond these threads there is little to prove the pre-western source. The strained argument of Beckmann (Hist, of Inventions, vol. n., p. 207) that the cassiteros of Homer and the bedil of the Hebrews was possibly not tin, and that tin was unknown at this time, falls to the ground in the face of the vast amount of tin which must have been in circulation to account for the bronze used over a period 2,000 years prior to those peoples. Tin is early mentioned in the Scriptures (Numbers xxxi, 22), being enumerated among the spoil of the Midianites (1200 b.c. ?), also Ezekiel (600 b.c., xxvii, 12) speaks of tin from Tarshish (the Phoenician settlement on the coast of Spain). According to Homer tin played considerable part in Vulcan's metallurgical stores. Even approximately at what period the Phoenicians began their distribution from Spain and Britain cannot be determined. They apparently established their settlements at Gades (Cadiz) in Tarshish, beyond Gibraltar, about 1100 B.c. The remains of tin mining in the Spanish peninsula prior to the Christian Era indicate most extensive production by the Phoenicians, but there is little evidence as to either mining or smelting methods. Generally as to the technical methods of mining and smelting tin, we are practically without any satisfactory statement down to Agricola. However, such scraps of information as are available are those in Homer (see note on p. 402), Diodorus, and Pliny. Diodorus says (v, 2) regarding tin in Spain : " They dig it up, and melt it down in the
" same way as they do gold and silver ; " and again, speaking of the tin in Britain, he says : " These people make tin, which they dig up with a great deal of care and labour ; being " rocky, the metal is mixed with earth, out of which they melt the metal, and then refine " it." Pliny (xxxiv, 47), in the well-known and much-disputed passage : " Next to be " considered are the characteristics of lead, which is of two kinds, black and white. The " most valuable is the white ; the Greeks called it cassiteros, and there is a fabulous story of its " being searched for and carried from the islands of Atlantis in barks covered with hides. " Certainly it is obtained in Lusitania and Gallaecia on the surface of the earth from black" coloured sand. It is discovered by its great weight, and it is mixed with small pebbles in |
|||
|
|
|||