HISTORY 99 over, as General Pitt Rivers has pointed out, bronze celts (axe heads), which have been unearthed in Cornwall, are never found in any parts where the Phoenicians have been. It has been assumed with much confidence that Corn- wall or the Scilly Isles must have been the Cassiterides of the ancients. But even this is doubtful. The Cassiterides were described as lying west of Spain, and the description The Nine Maidens, St Columb Major applies to the Azores; it may have been due to ignorance or design that they were represented as islands prolific in tin. That tin was worked in Cornwall from a very early period can hardly be questioned, in 1823 at Carnon a deer-horn pick was discovered 40 ft. below the surface, but as a crucifix was also found there 30 ft. below the 72
