ston's Encyclopædia of Commerce, which contains the most recent and practical account.

The individual who issues the bill is called the drawer, the person to whom it is addressed the drawee, until he consent to honour the draft or obey the order or bill, by writing his name on the face of it, after which he is called the acceptor. The bill may be passed from hand to hand by delivery or indorsation, and in the latter case the person who makes over is called the indorser, and the person who receives the indorsee. The indorser commonly puts his name on the back, with or without a direction to pay to a particular person. He who is in legal possession of the bill and the obligation contained in it, is called the holder or the payee. There is no particular form for a bill of exchange required by law, further than that the mandate to pay in money be distinct, and the person who is to pay, the person who is to receive, and the time of payment shall be ascertainable beyond a doubt. By special statute in England, all bills under, 20s. are void; and those between that sum and £5 must be made payable within twenty-one days after date, contain the name and description of the payee, and bear date at the time of making. Bills of exchange must be on a proper stamp.

Bills, though they are of the nature of a "chose in action," which is not strictly assignable, may be transferred from hand to hand or negociated. To allow of this, there must be negotiable words, as "or order" or "bearer." The various parties upon a bill, besides the acceptors, indorsers, drawers and others, become liable for its payment on failure of the acceptor.

Bills of exchange cease in England to be documents of debt on the expiration of six years from the time named for payment.

In foreign bills, the term "usance" is sometimes employed to express the period of running in foreign bills. It means a certain time fixed by custom, as between any two places. An usance between this kingdom and Rotterdam, Hamburg, Altona, or Paris, or any place in France, is one calendar month from the date of the bill; an usance between us and Cadiz, Madrid or Bilboa, two; an usance between us and Leghorn, Genoa, or Venice, three.]

TIN. TINNING.

It is generally believed that the metal called at present tin was known and employed in the arts, not only in the time of Pliny, but as early as that of Herodotus, Homer, and Moses. This I will not venture to deny; but I can only admit that it is probable, or that the great antiquity of this metal cannot be so fully proved as that of gold, silver, copper, iron, lead, and quicksilver.

Tin is one of those minerals which hitherto have been found in quantity only in a few countries, none of which ever belonged to the Greeks or the Romans1, or were visited, at an early period, by their merchants. As it never occurs in

a native state, the discovery of it supposes some accident more extraordinary than that of those metals which are commonly, or at any rate, often found native. I cannot, however, attach much importance to this circumstance, as the ancients became acquainted with iron at an early period, though not so early as with copper. I must also admit that tin might have been more easily discovered, because it is frequently found near the surface of the earth; does not require a strong heat or artificial apparatus for fusing it, and therefore can be more easily won than copper.

But if tin was known so early as has hitherto been believed, it must, on account of the circumstance here first remarked, have been scarce and therefore exceedingly dear.

[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.]

2 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. Ivi. 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 roastingplaces, 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.

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In this manner the aurichalcum or Corinthian brass, according to the expression of Plautus, was auro contra carum. The metal of the ancients, however, which is believed to have been tin, was not so rare and costly. Vessels of it are not often mentioned, in general; but they never occur among valuable articles. The circumstance also, that vessels of tin have never or very seldom been found among Greek or Roman antiquities, and that when discovered the nature of the metal has been very doubtful, though tin is not apt to change from the action of the air, water, or earth, and at any rate far surpasses in durability copper and lead, ancient articles made of which are frequently found, appears to me worthy of attention. It possesses also so many excellent properties, that it might be expected that the people of every age, to whom it was known, would have employed it in a great variety of ways. It recommends itself by its superior silvery colour; its ready fusion; the ease with which it can be hainmered and twisted; its lightness, and its durability. It is not soon tarnished; it is still less liable to rust or to become oxidized; it retains its splendour a long time, and when it is lost easily recovers it again. It is not so soon attacked by salts as many other metals; and this till lately has been considered a proof of its being less pernicious than it possibly may be. After an accurate investigation, should everything said by the ancients of their supposed tin be as applicable to a metallic mixture as to our tin, my assertion, that it is probable, but by no means certain, that the ancients were acquainted with our tin, will be fully justified.

The oldest mention of this metal, as generally believed, is to be found in the sacred scriptures. In the book of Numbers, chap. xxxi. ver. 22, Moses seems to name all the metals then known; and, besides gold, silver, brass (properly copper), iron, and lead, he mentions also bedil, which all commentators and dictionaries make to be tin. When Ezekiel, chap. xxvii. ver. 12, gives an account of the commerce of Tyre, he names, among the commodities, silver, iron, copper, and bedil. In Zechariah, chap. iv. ver. 10, the plummet of the builder or architect is said to be made of the bedil stone. In Isaiah, chap. i. ver. 25, the word occurs in the pirsi number, and appears there to denote either scoriæ, or all those inferior metallic substances which must be separated from the noble

metals. In the old Greek versions of these Hebrew books, bedil is always trauslated by cassiteros, except in the passage of Isaiah, where no metal is mentioned. In Zechariah, the translator calls the bedil stone τὸν λίθον κασσιτέρινον. There can hardly be a doubt, that for the purpose here mentioned, people would employ, not the lighter metal tin, but lead, and that the plummet was called the lead-stone, because at first a stone was used.

It seems, however, probable that in the first-quoted passage bedil is our tin; but must it not appear astonishing that the Midianites, in the time of Moses, should have possessed this metal? Is it not possible that the Hebrew word denoted a metallic mixture or artificial metal, which formerly was an article of commerce, as our brass is at present1?

1 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, 72, 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 J 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 KaσGiTepos 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 kaooirepos. In the lastmentioned 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 pólßos, lead, and the Vulgate by plumbum, and vice versa, the Seventy for oferet put kaoGirepos, 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 ba, μóλißos, stannum, for the stannum of Pliny, lead with silver; the gradation of the metals still remains; the kaoσirepos of the Seventy may be tin or real lead. It

The Greek translators considered bedil to be what they called cassiteros; and as the moderns translated this by stannum, these words have thus found their way into the Latin, German, and other versions of the Hebrew scriptures, which therefore can contribute very little towards the history of this metal. The examination of the word cassiteros would be of more importance; but before I proceed to it, I shall make some observations on what the ancients called stannum. This, at present, is the general name of our tin; and from it seem to be formed the estain of the French, the tin of the Low German and English, and the zinn of the High German. It can, however, be fully proved that the stannum of the ancients was no peculiar metal; at any rate not our tin, but rather a mixture of two other metals, which, like our brass, was made into various articles and employed for different purposes, on which account a great trade was carried on with it. This, at least, may with great certainty be concluded from a well-known passage of Pliny1; though to us, because

may have denoted tin and lead together, and perhaps the Seventy placed here kaσoirepos, 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, 78, 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, resás, arziz, which are all of Arabic, or, like kalai, of Turkish extraction. None of these have any affinity to κασσίτερος and bedil.

"As tin is brought from India, it occurred to me whether the oldest name, like tombak, might not be Malayan. But in the Malayan, tima is the name for tin and lead. Relandi Dissertat. Miscell. iii. p. 65. It would indeed be in vain to look for Asiatic etymologies in regard to Kaoσirepos, since, according to the express assertion of Herodotus, the Greeks did not procure tin from Asia, but from the Cassiterides islands. The name may be Phoenician; and though Bochart has not ventured to give any etymology of it, one, in case of necessity, might have been found equally probable as that which he has given of Britannia. But it appears to me more probable that the word is of Celtic extraction, because similar names are found in Britain, such as Cassi, an old British family; Cassivelaunus, a British leader opposed to Cæsar; Cassibelanus, in all probability, the same name in the time of Claudius. Cassi-ter, with the Greek termination of, seems to be a Celtic compound, the meaning of which might perhaps be found in Pelletier, Bullet, &c."

Plin. Lib. xxxiv. cap. 16, § 47, p. 669.

VOL. 11.

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