of a single tree, much like the American canoes.[1] In 1834 a boat of the same description was found in a creek near the village of North Stoke, on the river Arun, Sussex. It is now in the British Museum, and measures in length thirty-five feet four inches; in depth one foot ten inches; and in width, in the middle, four feet six inches. There are three bars left at the bottom, at different distances from each other, and from the ends, which seem to have served the double purpose of strengthening it and giving firm footing to those who rowed or paddled the canoe. It seems to have been made, or at least finished, by sharpened instruments, and not by fire, according to the practice of the Indians.[2]
Among the useful arts practised by the ancient Britons, they must be allowed to have had some acquaintance with those relating to the metals, but how much it is not easy to determine. Both Strabo and Diodorus Siculus have briefly noticed their mode of obtaining the tin from the earth. The former observes that Publius Crassus, upon his visit to the Cassiterides, found the mines worked to a very small depth. It may be inferred from this expression, that the only mining known to the natives was that which consisted in digging a few feet into the earth, and collecting what is now called the stream tin, from the modern process of washing and separating the particles of the ore thus lodged by directing over their bed a stream of water. No tools of which they were possessed could have enabled them to cut their way to the veins of metal concealed in the rocks. The language of Diodorus supports the same conclusion. He speaks of the tin as being mixed with earth when it is first dug out of the mine; but, from what he adds, it would appear that the islanders knew how to separate the metal from the dross by smelting. After it was thus purified, they prepared it for market by casting it into ingots in the shape of dice. What lead they had was no doubt procured in like manner from the surface of the soil or a very small depth under it. Pliny indeed expressly states that, even in
